Consumer electronics giant Samsung recently unveiled its new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, at a glitzy event in New York. The firm didn’t pull any punches with this one either, presenting a device with an impressive spec sheet and some pretty cool new features to boot.

This device’s predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S III, has been hugely successful and over 50 million units have been shipped to date. So, what has the Galaxy S4 got that can top it?

Key features

  • 7.9mm thickness
  • 5-inch Full HD super AMOLED display
  • Textured polycarbonate shell
  • 1.6GHz Exynos Octa-Core Processor (specific territories only)
  • 13 megapixel camera

There’s loads of innovative functionality offered by the Galaxy S4 that makes it one of the most advanced mobile phones ever released. Here’s a glimpse of some of the new features sported by the Samsung flagship…

Dual Camera

The Dual Camera feature allows users to use both rear and front cameras simultaneously when taking photos and recording videos. Both photos and videos can be blended together to create one seamless image or clip using effects to alter the size of the pictures and make the two frames naturally integrate. The use of both cameras at the same time means Dual Video Call is also possible, so if there’s a huddled gang of people in front of the rear-facing camera, users can also be involved in the call via the front-facing snapper.

Story Album

Story Album is a cool function that gathers together photos, videos, memos, location and weather information and turns that into a photo album. This means users can keep a record of exactly what was happening on special occasions and events via their smartphone. Users can then have these digital albums printed and delivered as a tangible real life album to flick back through anytime they like, so reminiscing isn’t always restricted to staring at their mobile phones.

Smart Scroll & Smart Pause

For the extremely lazy (you know who you are), the Galaxy S4 features Smart Scroll, a feature that lets users scroll up and down in browsers and emails by using facial recognition and tilt. The feature is pretty clever, as it recognizes the user’s face when they look at the screen, and then senses the movements made by their wrists and scrolls the pages up and down accordingly. Smart Pause uses the same technology to pause videos when you look away from the screen, so users don’t have to stop them manually.

This is just a sample of some of the new functionality the Galaxy S4 has to offer, and judging by them, the device seems to be the most exciting handset release of the year so far. Recent insight from Phones 4u shows 40% more people registered an interest in the Galaxy S4 in the first 48 hours after its release than after the Galaxy S III launch. Does this mean it’s going to be the best selling smartphone of 2013? With Apple waiting in the wings with its next iPhone release there could be some competition before the year is out, and although Samsung shouldn’t get too comfortable just yet, it’s definitely pulled something special out the bag with the Galaxy S4.

This guest post was written by Abbi Cox of Phones 4u, where you can register your interest in the Samsung Galaxy S4 to be notified when the handset goes on sale.