On the 14th of March the tech bloggers and Smartphone fans were eagerly waiting for the unveiling of the most anticipated tech-toy of 2013; the Samsung Galaxy S4. The unveiling of this latest smartphone by the South Korean giant, Samsung, was done at an event dubbed Samsung Unpacked 2013, held at Times Square in New York and streamed worldwide for the masses who couldn't be there. Set to officially hit the UK market as from April 26, the Galaxy S4 is much more than just an upgraded Galaxy S3. With "Life Companion" as its tag line, it packs a punch with cool new features on both the hardware and software front, but more on the latter. Ahead of its launch in the UK, mobile phone insurance specialist Protect your bubble takes a look at the Galaxy S4's features and specification.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Review

Starting with the hardware, it tips the scales at a very light 130 grams and with a body thickness of 7.9 millimetres. The screen is a massive 5 inch, super AMOLED with a pixel density of 441ppi and a resolution of 1080 by 1920 thus making it fully HD. The phone runs on an Exynos 5 Octa-core processor each clocking at 1.6GHz, a first for a smart-phone, with a 2GB of RAM, making the running of the 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) Android Operating System a walk in the park.

It also boasts two cameras; the front and rear. The front camera is 2MP and the rear one a whooping 13MP for HD videos and pictures. It has an internal memory of either 16, 32 or 64GB and can be extended up to 64GB via the microSD. The battery has been upgraded to 2600mAh from the Galaxy S3's 2100mAh hence ensuring a larger capacity to handle the system, longer duration between charge and extended lifespan. The phone comes in two colours; White Frost and Black Mist.

Most of the new features have been implemented on the software end of the phone, starting with the most hyped of the features, Air Gesture, it allows the user, even without holding the phone, to scroll up and down a document you are reading, toggle from screen to screen and even answer a phone call by just swiping a finger sideways through the air. Another variation of this feature, and likely to be used the most, is Air View, it works by simply hovering a finger over the screen to get a larger view of an item. The Air View works perfectly well with photos, calenders, email and videos. A cool thing about this "hands-off" feature is that it is glove friendly, meaning that it works just as well even with a glove on. So the cold weather wont deter you from enjoying your latest smartphone.

Smart Pause, a video playback feature that had been rumoured even before the actual release of the phone, when viewing video, then you turn away from the screen, this feature pauses the playback. When you return your gaze back to screen it resumes play. The Smart Scroll takes the art of scrolling to a whole new level, it adjusts the screen location, moving up or down depending on your eye and retina movements.

The S Translator is another great feature that translates either a text or audio input to a specified language. The translation produced can be in either written or audio form, spoken by the inbuilt voice. The two cameras can be used together via the Dual View feature that allows a collage shot of images from both cameras. Another camera feature is Sound and Shot which lets you take a normal static picture but incorporated with a a sound file of whatever the microphone could pick when the shot was being taken, revolutionary, I must say.

Other features include the optical reader which gives the phone the capability to scan business card information and add it directly to contacts. Group Play allows the phone to play games or listen to music on multiple devices. Using an inbuilt IR blaster, Galaxy S4 can act like a remote control for your TV using the WatchON feature. ChatON gives you the ability to make a video call and use either or both cameras. S Health on the other hand is a performance targeted feature that monitors almost all your physical health goals.

Being the only solid competition to Apple in the smartphone arena, Samsung has outdone itself with this new Galaxy S4, giving the competition a run for their money and something to seriously think about before they release their next gadget or else, Apple risks loosing the peak position it currently holds.