Will the Samsung Galaxy S4 eclipse the iPhone?
At a ceremony to be broadcast live in Times Square, South Korean electronics giant Samsung will unwrap the Galaxy S4, its answer toApple 's latest iPhone and the latest salvo in the battle for supremacy between Seoul and Silicon Valley. Samsung already sells moresmartphones than any manufacturer, but at the high end of the market Apple has remained unchallenged - until now.
Forecasters say Samsung's flagship Galaxy S franchise is catching up with the iPhone, and could begin to take its number one spot this year. While Apple has been weakened by rows with shareholders, trouble at its Foxconn factories and the maps debacle, the Samsung brand is gaining ground, backed by a $5bn-a-year electronics advertising budget that dwarfs those of all its rivals, Kazinform has learnt from The Guardian.
"Apple is not the one leading the market," said Francisco Jeronimo from analysis firm IDC. "I wouldn't be surprised if the new Samsung device sells more than the new Apple device over the next two years." Samsung's lips are sealed but it is ploughing every resource into packing the latest technology into the fourth edition of its Galaxy S, which is predicted to allow the users to scroll the screen and pause video simply by moving their eyes.
A camera tracks the gaze, which in existing Galaxy phones is already used to stop the screen going dark while pages are being read, and to adjust the picture to the viewer's line of sight. Trademarks called "eye scroll" and "eye pause" were registered by Samsung in Europe in January, suggesting two new functions.
The latest model is understood to have a 5in display, 13 megapixel camera and even an eight-core processor - today's most advanced phones have four cores in their silicon chips. All of which means the S4 should have a bigger screen, take crisper pictures and process web pages faster than the iPhone 5.
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