Samsung on Wednesday unveiled an LTE-Advanced version of its Galaxy S 4 flagship smartphone, which will connect to networks that provide double the speed of today's 4G LTE networks, the company said.
LTE-Advanced is basically an upgrade from 4G LTE. U.S. carriers have discussed plans for LTE-Advanced, but are currently still rolling out their 4G LTE networks. When they make the switch to LTE-Advanced, however, a phone like the Galaxy S4 LTE-A would be able to take advantage of those boosted networks speeds.
Given the limited availability of LTE-A, the new smartphone will first be available in Korea, starting this summer, in blue arctic or red aurora.
"Samsung maintains a unique position for delivering LTE innovations as a provider of the parts, devices, and equipment required to deliver next-generation 4G LTE services," Samsung co-CEO JK Shin said in a statement. "The introduction of the Galaxy S4 LTE-A demonstrates Samsung's desire and ability to provide consumers with technological innovations that take advantage of increased network speeds to deliver richer and fuller experiences."
At the CTIA trade show last year, Sprint and T-Mobile said they are exploring LTE-Advanced. At CTIA this year, Nvidia also showed off a prototype LTE-Advanced smartphone running downloads at 150 megabits per second, 10 times as fast as many home cable connections.
Last month, meanwhile, Samsung said it had made a breakthrough in the development of "5G" technology, which will ultimately be several hundred times faster than current 4G networks.
On the outside, the Galaxy S4 LTE-A looks like the original Galaxy S 4, but inside, the LTE-A version runs a 2.3-GHz, quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, which PCMag recently had the chance to benchmark. The original Galaxy S 4 runs a 1.6-GHz Samsung Exynos 5 Octa or a 1.9-GHz Qualcomm S4 Pro, depending on where you live.
The Galaxy S4 LTE-A has the 5-inch Super AMOLED display and runs Android 4.2.2. There's 32GB of internal memory, though the user only has access to about 24GB; the micro SD slot can expand that up to 64GB. There's a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing cam.
Samsung has been busy introducing different versions of the Galaxy S 4 lately. There's the Galaxy S4 Mini, a 4.3-inch version, the rugged Galaxy S4 Active, and the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which is like a combination of the Mini and the Galaxy Camera. For more, check out PCMag's hands on with the Galaxy S4 Mini and Zoom, as well as the Galaxy S4 Active.
Also see PCMag's full review of the Galaxy S 4 and the slideshow above.
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