Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) is all set to release it latest flagship smart phone the Samsung Galaxy S4 in New York on Thursday, but the company has run into a road block. A video purportedly showing the new phone has shown up on YouTube. The leak comes just a day after a leaked photo appeared on a Chinese forum. The full video is below.
The video shows a five inch smart phone, bearing the Samsung brand, being started and set up. The video shows the phone’s camera and its dialler but gives little else away. Due to the lack of distinguishing features, like eye scrolling, and the almost certainty that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) is looking to differentiate itself this time around, there is some question as to the authenticity of the video.
The Galaxy S4 shown, for those that cannot watch the video, retains the plastic casing of the S3 and is black in colour. The interface appears laggier than that of the Galaxy S4 predecessor, the Galaxy S3, and any other Android premium model.
It seems unlikely that Samsung will release an obviously bad phone, but more unusual things have happened. The Galaxy S4 is being billed as an Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) killer. A laggy smart phone will not put a dent in Apple’s market share.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) has been providing its own leaks in order to stir up hype for the launch. The company posted a picture of a silhouette of the Galaxy S4 on its Twitter feed yesterday. The firm has also been running a long viral marketing campaign to push the launch event into the public sphere.
Today’s video may not actually be of the Samsung Galaxy S4, and if it is it may be of a test model rather than the launch version of the smart phone. The poor performance of the model on the video adds to the sceptical view of this video.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) will have its formal launch of the Galaxy S4 on Thursday. If we’ve already seen the entirety of the smart phone in this video, there’s really not much to look forward to. It seems likely that Samsung will have something a little more to offer on Thursday.
