Showdown: The smartphones waiting for the Samsung Galaxy S4

Samsung’s most awaited handset of 2013 will be unveiled in roughly 14 hours from now and has no doubt got Samsung’s fans waiting with baited breath. If the latest leaked images from Chinese site IT168 are anything to go by, then we already have a very fair idea of what the Galaxy S 4 will turn out to be.

Granted that these leaked images should be taken with a pinch of salt as we don’t know for sure what the final version will look like, but almost all leaked images, phone cases etc. that have leaked in the past just hours before launch have always been the real deal. So this one should be no exception.

We’ve already rounded up what we know about the handset so far based on rumours, speculations and leaked images, so we won’t get into that too much today. What we will be doing is comparing these rumoured specifications against the other flagship handsets from Sony, HTC and LG. Here’s a quick chart comparing all the flagship handsets.

Note: The specifications of the S4 are based purely on rumours and leaks and in no way reflect the official specifications of the handset.

Let’s start with the display as that’s the most crucial part of today’s smartphone. Rumours suggest the S4 will feature a 4.99-inch AMOLED or green PHOLED display developed by Samsung. Compared to all the other flagship handsets that use LCD, we can definitely expect very good black levels from the S4. Samsung has always used AMOLED panels in its high-end devices and we feel this will continue with the latest flagship as well.

The resolution will be Full HD, of course, which takes the pixel count to 440 ppi. The trouble with AMOLED is that it tends to gulp power at a very rapid rate when displaying whites, which only worsens when you bump up the resolution so high. To counter this, Samsung might use something called a greed PHOLED display, which is supposed to reduce the power draw by up to 25-30 percent. We haven’t seen the Optimus G Pro yet, but the closest competition for the S4’s screen right now seems to be from HTC One, which has really deep blacks and a crazy pixel count of 469 ppi.

The leaked photo of the supposed S4

If the leaked pictures are in fact the real deal, then it’s safe to say that the S4 is not winning any design awards. Clearly, Samsung has chosen to focus all its efforts on the hardware and new software features. The phone looks nearly identical to the S3 except for a slightly re-designed back, which we like a lot better compared to the old one. The phone also gets a new textured pattern for the bezel as well as the back cover. When it comes to design and construction, there’s no beating the HTC One – it’s simply a class apart. However, it still remains to be seen how good (or bad) the final design is.