Samsung Galaxy S4 is the new eye phone

Impressive features, but fails on 'wow' factor

Apple’s supremacy in smartphones is being challenged yet again. And this time around, Korean handset maker Samsung took the battle right to Manhattan, to launch its latest smartphone, Galaxy S4.

The ripples were felt across the world as 300,000 people tuned in to watch the live stream on YouTube, a smartphone frenzy associated with Apple.

Samsung might have faced lawsuits for copying Apple’s features. But this Korean company has now come up with a smart eye tracking technology, that allows users to control their screen like pausing a video or scroll up or down a web page using their eyes. S4 also comes with Air view, which will allow users to navigate the phone or browse the web by hovering a finger over the screen, and not touching it.

The S4, that has a five-inch screen is 56% larger than the iPhone, and uses 1.9 GHz, quad core Snapdragon Fusion pro or propriety 1.6 GHz octa-core Exynos 5 Octa.

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Though the phone is loaded with new features and better camera capability, analysts across the segment believe that this time around there is no ‘wow’ factor in S4. Questions are being raised whether Samsung has enough in its labs to come up with the next big thing to sustain itself as the competition intensifies going ahead.

Analyst firm Ovum believes that competitors will catch up (as Samsung has caught up in many ways with Apple) and Samsung will need to continue its innovation to stretch its time on the top. It also needs to build a stronger set of content offerings that cross its various platforms, so that it can extend its leadership in smartphones into the tablet space, and give consumers a reason to buy into an "all-Samsung" experience with their consumer electronics.

“The Galaxy S4 is a worthy successor to earlier members of this line, and will doubtless sell well. But it highlights a couple of the key challenges Samsung faces. Firstly, how to continue to improve its devices year on year when existing phones are already top of their class, and there aren't obvious shortcomings? And secondly, how to set Samsung's devices apart from other devices that share the Android operating system that provides so much of the functionality?

As rivals such as HTC and Sony up the specs of their devices and provide ever better hardware, it becomes more and more important for Samsung to differentiate on software and services,” said Jan Dawson, chief telecom analyst at Ovum.

Analysts also point out that though the S4 is heavy on features and on high-end technology like a 8-core processors, the common user is either not aware of it or are not aware of how to use these technologies.

“S4 has some good features, but there is nothing which other competitors will not incorporate in their next launch. So there is no differentiator that Samsung is creating in the market. Moreover, I do not think how many people understand how to use these features. Either Samsung needs to educate people on what, for instance an 8-core processor can do. Or competition will start educating users on why they don’t need an 8-core processor phone,” said Faisal Kawoosa, senior manager, Telecoms and Semiconductor and Electronics practice at CyberMedia Research.

Samsung is yet to announce the price for S4, but from the pricing trend based on recent launches, analyst expect the pricing to be in the range of Rs 42,000 - 45,000.

Kawasoo, however, feels that pricing will not be a deterrent for the uptake of S4 in the Indian market. “These phones come under the value segment and frankly pricing is not a big concern. But what might matter to the user in this category is the differentiation in the handset. That somehow is not happening in case of Samsung,” added he.

For now, Samsung can likely rely on its vastly superior marketing budget and the relatively weak efforts of its competitors in software to keep it ahead.

"It clearly indicates Samsung's ambitions and confirms its intent to remain on the top in the smartphone market. Not all the features of S4 are new, like the multiple camera shots. But they did try to pick the best and trying  to enhance smartphone ecosystem," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst, Gartner.