It's been a long time coming, but we may finally have some concrete dates on when the Samsung Galaxy S4 handset will be appearing on retail shelves. According to fresh reports this morning, it looks like Galaxy S4 will go on sale the week of April 15, with its unveiling event taking place on March 22.
The release date comes to SamMobile via the usual unnamed industry insiders. SamMobile has been fairly reliable in the past, but always keep in mind that until Samsung confirms the date, it's not 100 percent truth.
According to SamMobile, "Project J" (the Galaxy S4) has been renamed to "Altius(J)" and will begin shipping week 16 of 2013. A quick look at your calendar will show you that this is the week of April 15, meaning Galaxy S4s should be landing in customers' hands before the month ends.
Samsung will apparently be revealing the Galaxy S4 at a Mobile Unpacked event around three weeks earlier, on March 22, in the United States, according to Korean news outlet Asiae. Some previous reports had indicated that Samsung was deciding between unveiling the Galaxy S4 in Europe, Asia, or the United States. If this report is indeed true, it looks like Samsung has settled on the United States, probably to more aggressively encroach on Apple's home turf.
There's no word on pricing, but expect it to keep in line with the Galaxy S3 - it's highly doubtful that either Samsung or customers would see a major price hike as beneficial to sales.
The Galaxy S4 should be coming with a 4.99-inch Full HD 1080p AMOLED display, an Exynos 5 eight-core processor clocked at around 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, and a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera. The handset should also be running Android 4.2 at the time of its release.
The coming months will be interesting to watch as the Galaxy S4 will square off against a couple new iPhones from Apple. Which smartphone do you think will come out on top?