Samsung Galaxy S 4 LTE-A Detailed With New ImageON App

Samsung has detailed the latest super-fast version of the Galaxy S 4, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 LTE-A revealed yesterday, as well as confirming its launch plans for the Snapdragon 800 powered smartphone. The new S 4 – which adds support for LTE-Advanced which, on the right network, can achieve up to twice existing LTE data rates – will arrive in Korea over the summer, Samsung says, and will also bring with it the new Samsung ImageON feature.

ImageON, the latest in the added-extras Samsung loads onto its TouchWiz phones, takes over the camera and uses if for visual search. By snapping a photo of an object, Samsung says, ImageON can analyze it, identify it, and then play videos related to it; alternatively, Galaxy S 4 LTE-A owners will be able to analyze photos in the gallery.

The other feature of note in this new S 4 is high resolution DMB digital television. Right now, Samsung says, both features will be limited to the Korean version of the phone, though we'd be surprised if ImageON wasn't ripped from the official ROM and distributed unofficially at some point.

It's not the first time we've seen Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 chipset make an appearance this week, with Sony also using the new SoC for its Xperia Z Ultra. However, Samsung ramps up the clock speed for the quadcore a little, pushing it to 2.3GHz versus the Sony smartphone's 2.2GHz.

Either way, as our time benchmarking the Snapdragon 800 confirmed, the chip is a powerhouse, and Galaxy S 4 LTE-A owners are unlikely to have issues with performance. Samsung isn't talking about battery life from the 2,600 mAh removable power pack, however, and the combination of heavy chip use along with taking advantage of the LTE-A support could see it drained in short order.

Samsung will initially offer the Galaxy S 4 LTE-A in blue and red, with more colors expected later on.