Samsung is hard at work for yet another busy year, evident by the codes and projects that have surfaced with cryptic details. Benchmarks have already been reported for the Galaxy S IV, and further indications of the superphone’s release points out that it is likely to be announced at a press event on March 15th.
SamMobile has mentioned that the Korean tech giant may be working on a “mini” version to the Galaxy S IV, which is akin to the Galaxy S III mini debuted last year. The S III mini, which was presented as a mid-ranged version of Samsung’s highly popular Galaxy S III, doesn’t seem to be a bad concept as it sold very well in Europe, where it was first introduced.
If you haven’t read about Project J in our recent articles, then basically it consists of three entities; Project J Altius, Project J Mini Serrano, and Project J Active Fortius.
The Galaxy S IV mini is a part of the trilogy, where its Project J codename is presented as Serrano, which has almost nothing in comparison with the other two code names; Fortius and Altius, which are a part of the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius (Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger”.) while Serrano is more of a culture than it is a word. No matter, as much as Samsung has their reasons for all these interesting words, they will likely become meaningless once the products launch.
The Galaxy S IV mini, or Serrano, is expected to be a trimmed down version of its bigger brother, Project J Altius. The device will be expected to run at a mid-range level and may not include every feature, like wireless charging, but we’re thinking (hoping) NFC will be on board. It should be, because Samsung did mention a release for an NFC enabled Galaxy S III mini in the later part of January of this year, which may signal for the S IV mini to have the same.
Besides Altius, another item of interest is Fortius, which is reported by SamMobile to be a device that utilizes accessories such as armbands, a bike mount, and a pouch. This indicates that there may be competition to all the smartwatch releases that seems to trend the tech world of 2013. Whether this will be success or not is up in the air at this point, but with reports of innovations coming from Samsung, then we may find more than just a smartwatch competitor.
As always, details are never final, so there will be updates to the progress of these projects as the time approaches for their release. Have you tried the Galaxy S III mini? What would you add to the Galaxy S IV mini that you didn’t find in the former? Tell us all about it in the comments.