Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Google Edition Galaxy S4: Explained!”.
[ Applause, ], hey what is up guys mkbhd here and yesterday was day one of google i o 2013, their developer conference, similar to wwdc from apple, and while there were a ton of interesting announcements yesterday, i’m going to wait to summarize the whole thing and give You maybe my top impressions of it when the whole thing is over, so there are more events today and more tomorrow, so we’re gon na get to that whole summary later. But there was one particular announcement yesterday that was extremely mind-blowing that blew a lot of people’s minds, including mine, so without any further ado, we’re gon na go ahead and talk about it. This is the google experience, galaxy s4 explained so there’s the original galaxy s4. It’S a very successful phone already in its own right with more than six million sales all across the country. It’S the successor to the very popular galaxy s3 and it was announced a couple weeks ago and it is doing extremely well.
Then another galaxy s4 was announced yesterday, which is why it was a little bit mind-blowing, but taking a step back the day before the keynote or the day before yesterday’s keynote russell holly gets all the props for this. He posted an article or basically published a rumor, but a basically confirmed rumor. That samsung would be releasing a galaxy s4 with stock android on it, and that was a basic summary of it, and i just kind of dismissed that as saying that seriously, like that’s. Never going to happen, there is no incentive for samsung to do that, no incentive for google to do that.
Why would that ever happen doesn’t make any sense, never going to happen, no chance, uh and so we’re watching the google? I o live keynote and sure enough. Hugo bear is on stage and we’ve been talking for a lot of different like a whole bunch of different. Like things we’ve been discussing apis and new refreshes to cloud services and new announcements, and then for about five minutes. He pulls out a galaxy s4 and he starts talking about how the galaxy s4 is a great phone, and i’m sitting there watching it’s like this.
Is this really gon na happen like what is this actually going to happen, and then he turns on the galaxy s4 and it’s got stock android on it? It really does it has stock android on it. So at this point my jaw is on the floor. I have no idea why he’s doing this and he keeps going and he’s talking about how this is going to be a nexus experience. Galaxy s4. Not only is he holding one and not only is it a project? That’S come together in the last week, but this is going to be sold in the google play store. So this is the google edition samsung galaxy s4.
It is going to be sold in the google play store for 649 and it’s going to be available on june 26th, now about the specs of it. This is running pure android, 4.2 jelly bean and, as you’ve heard, the galaxy s4 running touchwiz or the regular galaxy s4 has had about eight gigabytes of storage out of the total 16 that you usually get because touchwiz takes up so much but with stock pure android. On the galaxy s4 you’re gon na be able to have well a lot more of that space. Back you’re gon na be able to claim more than about 10 gigs of storage. When you get this thing out the box, the updates for the software for this google edition phone will be managed straight from google. That’S the thing so you’re not getting updates from samsung anymore.
You don’t have to wait for samsung or over the carrier for that matter. To add uh, whatever software features they want before pushing the update as soon as there’s a new version of android, you will get it on your galaxy s4. That’S what the google nexus experience is and hugo was not even shy about using the term nexus over and over again in that presentation he called it a nexus experience device which brings up a lot of other questions that i’m about to address. But basically, this is another nexus. Now this is going to be sold alongside the nexus 4 and the google play store in about a month now. The galaxy s4 may not be as solid as the htc one and by the way, this is not happening with the htc one.
As far as we know as much as i wish it was, but this is not a solid built as the htc one and it’s not really as feature packed as a regular galaxy s4 anymore and it’s not as cheap as the nexus 4. So it’s really in its own category in the google play store it’s not competing with anything which leads us to the question. Why why did this happen? What does this mean for the nexus line, and what does this mean for the galaxy line so for the galaxy line? This means nothing pretty much, absolutely nothing. Now we do know that samsung and google had to work on this a little bit at least to get this going. But as far as we know, samsung isn’t going to be marketing this at all they’re going to market their regular galaxy s4 and you’re never going to see ads for the nexus galaxy s4 for the nexus line. On the other hand, this is a gigantic question mark, but there are two very clear paths that this could take.
This initiative could take one of two very distinct, clear paths, the first path, and what i think is very very unlikely is the we’re giving up on the nexus path where the nexus 4 and the galaxy nexus, and that whole line of devices is now over and We’Re going to start to see basically a whole bunch of these devices just start to get stock androids, so future htc devices future samsung devices. Future flagships are just going to get stock android and become the next nexus so for all intensive purposes. If we go along that path, this is the next nexus now why? I think this is unlikely, because google doesn’t use the nexus as a sort of a sales point. They don’t use it for anything much more than a halo device and that’s the problem is giving up that halo device would be giving up a lot of the direction that they were leading.
The galaxy s4 has a physical home button. It does not have the on-screen buttons, it has a capacitive menu and back button, and it has a micro sd card slot in the back which, for all intents and purposes, makes it a super nexus. But google for the past two nexuses the galaxy nexus. They started to push on screen buttons, the nexus 4. They had even more same on-screen buttons and they gave up external storage moving from the galaxy nexus to the nexus 4. So they’re clearly changing the direction and they really want to see on-screen buttons in nexuses. Why would they just give it up and stop pushing that direction? That’S that’s very unlikely from what i see anyway. So that leaves the other path.
The other path is to continue making nexuses and we’ll probably see a next nexus phone later this year anyway, but they could also continue to make nexus experience. Phones, i mean imagine a play, store full of awesome devices running stock android. That would be pretty awesome.
Their device updates will all be managed by google that would be pretty sweet and uh. They could just continually add devices whenever they want and also make actual nexus devices, as they continue to make those halo devices on the side, and they continue to do that. That’S probably the more likely solution. I really don’t see google giving up the nexuses and just going straight to other phones that other manufacturers make, because google worked really tightly with samsung with lg and with htc to make all of their nexuses so far, they’re going to continue to do that. As far as we know, so, that’s basically all we know about the google edition samsung galaxy s4. It’S not a lot right now, but it at least answers the question.
What the hell just happened, uh. Obviously my jaw was on the floor and again props to russell holly. I’Ll add all the links you guys need to know right below the like button to get all the information you need about this google edition phone, but again hugo was not shy about saying that this was a nexus experience device which really raised a lot of eyebrows, But uh, that is the google edition galaxy s4 either way, that’s been it! Thank you for watching.
If you want to see my full galaxy s4 review, i will have that link below as well, and you can watch that and decide if you actually want to pick this up. I don’t know if anyone’s going to be buying this phone there’s not really much incentive to buy a 650 unlocked phone. It does have the same bands as the current nexus 4 with att and t-mobile. I think it is, and you also have lte support, but again, for the most part, most people who have bought the galaxy s4 already aren’t going to be all that disappointed in it.
Although some people in the geek community are just going to put signage and mod on theirs anyway, either way, thanks for watching and i’ll talk to you guys in the next article peace. So you .