The mobile phones industry has been a fast growing and a fast changing industry. New technologies have been introduced in the past 20 years or so that made cellular phones part of our lives in every way. Companies have been moving ups and downs in terms of market share and domination of the cellular phone business. Consumers taste have been changing over the years with the changing in technology. For example mobile phones were decreasing in size, and the smallest phones were the coolest and most expensive but that is not the case now. Who knew that 5-inch smartphones can be popular? Consumers prefer smartphones with big screens to be able to do the many other tasks that are becoming essential and I am not talking about making phone calls. Making phone calls becoming the least used function in the smartphone with many users spend more time surfing the web, checking emails and watching videos.

When the PC maker Dell Inc. introduced the 5-inch screen smartphone known as the Dell Streak it didn’t generate that much attention. The Dell Streak idea was to give consumers a hybrid smartphone, so it could be used both as a phone and also as a tablet because of its big 5-inch screen. Sales didn’t meet expectations and the reason was that consumers didn’t like the idea of carrying a smartphone that size. The Dell Streak was discontinued in 2010.

(Video Courtesy of CNET)

We can reflect back on this fast changing business by looking at those companies who were once on the top and now they struggle to survive. Nokia for example, it was the world’s largest mobile phones manufacturer, well not any more. Nokia has missed on the smartphone revolution and tried to catch up late. It seems that Nokia executives didn’t see it coming for two years. Nokia realized late that cellular phones evolved into something more than just a device to make phone calls, it changed into a device that can do most of the functions that the personal computer does, and that device became known as the smartphone. Of course Nokia is playing catch up, we hope they will succeed.

Research in Motion the Canadian based company and the maker of the BlackBerry enjoyed a period of great success few years before Apple got into the cellular phone business. BlackBerry was once a class of its own when it came to cellular phones. Blackberry introduced many unique and cool features such as secure email and the internet. Apple decided to get into the mobile phone business and introduced the first generation iPhone. Apple promised then to bring the full experience of the internet to the cellular phones and not just a water down version. The smartphone revolution started and the rest is history and apple has iPhone 5 in the market.

Apple became the biggest smartphone seller in the world. People were lining up get the best smartphone in the market. The majority of the other companies started catching up with several products to some degree of success. No one came close to compete with the iPhone with the exception of one smartphone and that was the Galaxy smartphones line made by the Korean based electronic manufacturer Samsung Inc. Samsung electronics introduced several smartphones but its top of the line smartphone the Galaxy became an iPhone competitor. Backed by Google’s Android operating system, the Galaxy line of smartphones gain great popularity with many features that out performed the iPhone. Samsung out performed apple and sold more galaxy devices globally than apple sold iPhones. However Apple still has the Lion share of the smartphones sale in the U.S with 29% compare to Samsung share of 21%. Apple didn’t introduce any major breakthrough in innovation and technology to convince consumers to stick with the pricey iPhone devices since the iPhone 4 was released.

Will the new Samsung Galaxy S4 with enhanced software features help Samsung expand its market share in the U.S? Business analyst believe Samsung will take over Apple spot and become the world’s biggest smartphone seller globally and in the U.S. Apple of course still has an advantage during the holiday season because it sells more smartphones than any other company, thanks to Apple die hard fans who line up to buy the new Apple products. That advantage may not be a great help or long lived if apple doesn’t come up with a smarter smartphone and soon. Apple has to change the iPhone design and come up with a breakthrough in technology and innovation to stay in the lead at least in the U.S market. The stiff competition between Apple and Samsung can also widen the play field as apple may be experimenting with other devices such as the smart watch.

Samsung Galexy S4 Specifications

GENERAL 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
4G Network LTE (market dependent)
SIM Micro-SIM
Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2013, April 26th
BODY Dimensions 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm (5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 in)
Weight 130 g (4.59 oz)
DISPLAY Type Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inches (~441 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch Yes
Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 3 – TouchWiz UI
SOUND Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Loudspeaker Yes
3.5mm jack Yes
MEMORY Card slot microSD, up to 64 GB
Internal 16/32/64 GB storage, 2 GB RAM
DATA GPRS Yes
EDGE Yes
Speed HSDPA, 42.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP, EDR, LE
NFC Yes
Infrared port Yes
USB Yes, microUSB v2.0 (MHL), USB On-the-go, USB Host
CAMERA Primary 13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Dual Shot, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization, HDR
Video Yes, 1080p@60fps, 1080p@30fps, dual-video rec.
Secondary Yes, 2 MP, 1080p@30fps, dual video call
OS Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
Chipset Exynos 5 Octa 5410
CPU Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
GPU PowerVR SGX 544MP3
Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, temperature, humidity, gesture
Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS
Browser HTML5, Adobe Flash
Radio TBD
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support and GLONASS
Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
Colors White Frost, Black Mist
 Additional Features
– Wireless charging (market dependent)
– S-Voice natural language commands and dictation
– Smart stay, Smart pause, Smart scroll
– Air gestures
– Dropbox (50 GB storage)
– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
– TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
– SNS integration
– MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
– MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
– Organizer
– Image/video editor
– Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
– Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa
– Voice memo/dial/commands
– Predictive text input (Swype)
BATTERY Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery