Coming soon: Water-proof and dust-proof Samsung Galaxy S4

Samsung has launched its new flagship smartphone – the Galaxy S4 – in Dubai, but one of the highlights of the event wasn’t the smartphone itself. Instead, it was President of Samsung Gulf Electronics Young Soo Kim mentioning that a waterproof and dust proof version of the flagship device is slated for release in the coming months.

The decision to make a waterproof and dust proof version of the S4 was undoubtedly a way to compete with Sony’s current flagship device – the Xperia Z. The Xperia Z has IP 55 and IP 57 certification, which proves that the device is capable of surviving underwater up to a depth of 1 metre for 30 minutes, as well as withstanding dust and sand.

If Samsung can manage to avoid the problems that the Xperia Z faces, such as the low call volume on the earpiece, the Korean company will have a definite winner in its hands. Samsung, though, hasn’t revealed the release date or availability of the water/dust proof version of the S4.

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A water proof and dust proof variant of the S4 would be great!

Announced on March 14 at a swanky function in New York, the Galaxy S4 brings ultra-modern hardware, paired with some key improvements and changes in the TouchWiz software experience. The Galaxy S4 brings a 5-inch Full-HD Super AMOLED display, with deep blacks and saturated colours. Samsung has bundled in display-calibration software to allow users to fine-tune it.

Potential buyers of the S4 have three storage options, 16, 32 or 64GB, to choose from, and all three will come with a microSD card slot for further expansion up to 64GB. The Galaxy S4 ships with the latest version of Android, i.e. 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, but Samsung’s customisations and features are particularly interesting.

Here are the key specs of the Samsung Galaxy S4:

• 5-inch full HD Super AMOLED display, 441 ppi
• HSPA+, LTE, GPRS/EDGE
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth 4.0 with EDR and A2DP
• GPS with A-GPS support and GLONASS
• NFC
• MicroUSB 2.0 with MHL, USB On-the-go, USB Host
• 13-megapixel primary camera with LED flash, 2-megapixel front-facing camera
• 16/32/64GB internal storage with microSD card for expansion up to 64 GB

The phone is powered by a 2600 mAh battery, which is very capacious in comparison to the predecessor Galaxy S3’s 2100 mAh unit.

Samsung has been sending out invitations for the launch of the S4 in India on April 26. According to our sources in the grey market, the phone is expected to launch with an official price tag of Rs 42,000, while its MOP will be around the Rs 40,000 mark.