Announced to the world from New York City, the Galaxy S4 was greeted with open arms by Samsung enthusiasts. Building upon the success of Samsung’s superstar S series, the fourth release, muscles in bigger, more powerful specs that fit effortlessly within its beautiful design. But what makes the Samsung Galaxy S4 better than its contemporaries? Read on as we guide you through our favourite stand out features.

Air View / Air Gesture

In the age of touchscreen smartphones, Samsung change the rules with their Air View feature. Simply hover over a contact or icon to reveal more information; that’s right you don’t need to make contact with the screen! It’s also easy to commit actions without touching as a quick wave can change a music track or quickly answer a phone call.

Smart Pause

When watching a video, you can stop the action with just your eyes. As the Galaxy S4 knows when you are focused on the display, turning your head away will pause the video. Smart Pause also knows when your attention is back on the screen so will resume the action automatically when you’re ready.

Dual Camera

If you feel left out when shooting a group photo, the Samsung Galaxy S4 release will change that. With the Dual camera feature, both lenses will capture a photo at the same time so you’ll be a part of the moment.

ChatON

ChatON on the S4 lets you video call two other friends at the same time with ease. With the additional option to share your screen with one other contact, the Samsung Galaxy S4 offers a feature similar to recently announced BlackBerry Z10.

So that’s a round-up of the great features coming up in the Samsung Galaxy S4. Why not pre-order yours from One Stop Phone Shop. Arriving in the UK on the 26th April, we can see this smartphone becoming the bestseller for 2013.

Earlier this month, Taiwanese manufacturers HTC unveiled their new flagship smartphone for 2013; The HTC One. Challenging the smartphone industry with specifications and features that matter, we ask if this HTC smartphone is the one for you?

Full HD display

Similar to the Sony Xperia Z, the HTC One packs a glistening 1080p Full HD resolution within its display. Rather than scale up to the mammoth 5 inch display of the Z, the One uses the same 4.7 inch screen size as 2012’s HTC One X.

Improved sound

As with most HTC releases, Beats Audio integration is on board to help you hear all the detailed layers of your favourite tracks. The HTC One gives your music a further boost with its BoomSound feature; dual speakers positioned on the front of the phone. These are perfect to really punch out above the crowd when sharing content with friends.

UltraPixel camera

The camera phone has become the unfortunate victim of the megapixel race as manufacturers constantly try to outdo each other because customers believe a higher count means better camera. The HTC One ditches this fools race for their Ultrapixel camera; a snapper with less quantity, but pixels that are larger in size. Thanks to the improved lens and wide aperture, the HTC One captures plenty of light so your photos will be full of accurate tones and colours.

HTC Zoe

The Ultrapixel camera can automatically capture 3 second HD videos when you take a photo. Known as HTC Zoe, these clips are viewed automatically when browsing your gallery. A great way to bring your photo album to life.

So that’s a quick round up of the HTC One. Available to purchase on pre-order, the HTC One will go on general release from the 15th March. Pre-order your HTC One today and take advantage of all the great entertainment features for yourself.

With so many smartphones on the market, it can be difficult to know which one is right for you.  Being spoilt for choice can leave you confused. Don’t panic, here’s our top tips on what you should look for when purchasing a smartphone.

Screen Size

The size of your screen is a measurement in inches going diagonally from corner to corner. If you love watching video or playing games, a larger screen above 3.5 inches is recommended.

Operating System

This is the software (OS) that runs on your smartphone. Different examples include Windows Phone, iOS, BlackBerry and Android. Each to their own have different pros and cons and your preference may depend on the ability to customise, ease of use, or simply the range of multimedia available from their app store.

Processor

A processor is like the “brain” of your smartphone and is there to power through your demands. Measured in GHz powerful processors are typically above 1.2GHz and are ideal for more complex tasks such as apps or watching videos. Processors which have more than one core are often recommended for users who want to do more multi-tasking on their smartphone. These include dual-core and quad-core smartphones.

Camera

If you love capturing video or photos, camera phones are great for just that! Photo resolution is measured in megapixels, with anything above on or above 8 megapixels offering great quality. If you love video calling, it may be worth finding a smartphone that has a secondary, front facing camera.

Memory
This is essentially how much data you can store internally on your smartphone. Usually measured in Gigabytes, the more space you have, the more music, video, apps and more you can store on your phone.

For those who love to use up memory, consider buying a smartphone with a microSD slot as inserting a card will give you at least another 32GB of memory. Cloud sharing options such as iCloud and Dropbox and SkyDrive are becoming more available and will let you access your files over the internet. A perfect solution if you have a large data tariff.

By focusing on the key features you are looking for in a smartphone, you’ll soon have a greater idea of the smartphones which will meet your needs.

Earlier this week Canadian manufacturers of BlackBerry announced two smartphones running the latest BB10 software.

BlackBerry Z10

The flagship release. Keyboard free and built with a 4.2 inch touchscreen display, the Z10 may look similar to every other smartphone on the market, but it is the new BB10 software experience which helps separate itself from the Android clones.

Under the bonnet, we see a rapid 1.5GHz dual core processor, which is ideal for the multi-tasking Active Frames on BB10. There’s 4G connectivity too which combined with a responsive HTML 5 web browser makes the BlackBerry web experience instant.

BlackBerry’s infamous BBM service has evolved too. Shorthand for BlackBerry Messenger, BBM now lets you video call your friends over Wi-Fi or mobile data connection. Going one step beyond Apple’s FaceTime, BBM lets you share the contents of your screen with your video calling contact; perfect if you want to talk through that sales pitch… or that dancing cat video.

BlackBerry Q10

BlackBerry knows there are still hard-core QWERTY keypad users in the world. The Q10 has this covered; in fact it’s great to see that BlackBerry have maintained one of the staple features that helped them rise to success over the last decade. Built with a 3.1 inch display, the Q10 offers ample space for you to read off those emails. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a budget release though. The Q10 device still rocks a 1.5GHz dual core processor, 8 megapixel camera, NFC and microHDMI slot. Expect to see the Q10 in the UK late March / early April.

Two great handsets announced by BlackBerry so far this 2013. Current rumours suggest that we might see as many as four more BlackBerry 10 smartphones unveiled this year too. BlackBerry are back in business!

2012 saw Sony Mobile take the stage with an alphabet soup of smartphone titles; The Sony Xperia S, T, U and P to name a few. Moving swiftly into 2013, Sony is back with the hotly tipped Sony Xperia Z. Have they saved the last letter of the alphabet for their best release, or will this unveiling send you to sleep? Not all the details have been officially unveiled yet, but here’s what you need to know.

Full HD Display

The most note-worthy aspect of the Z is that it will have a large 5 inch display which boasts full 1080p High Definition clarity. Expected to be one of the first 1080p smartphones released in the UK, it’s a feature that will make your movies and gaming on the go look immense.

The Latest Android OS

The Sony Xperia Z will ship out with Android Jelly Bean 4.2, the latest operating system from Google. Jelly Bean provides great features such as Google Now which gives you important information based on the time of day or your location.

Camera

Expect the Sony Xperia Z to build on the fantastic camera of the Xperia T. We expect to see full 1080p front and rear facing cameras. The main 13 megapixel camera is sure to come with premium lens technology and is likely to offer you great snaps using Jelly Bean’s Photo Sphere camera feature.

Quad Core Processor

Sony has also upped the processing clout of their future release to house a quad core 1.5GHz chip. Running at the same speed as the dual-core processing Xperia T, the quad core boost will come in handy when shooting HD video or when running multiple applications at the same time.

4G connectivity?

No confirmation on whether the handset will cater 4G connectivity. There appears to be a similar device in the pipeline called the Sony Xperia ZL; which may cater for those who have access to 4G internet coverage.

Expect all the details to be officially confirmed after the international CES show mid-January.