Samsung! A brand that singlehandedly changes the landscape of global smart phone market. Ask any mobile phone expert about the market without Samsung and you’d get a clod look. Quite frankly, the South Korean manufacturer has had a far-reaching impact not only on the fringe players but also on the big brands by forcing them to think and rethink their product and positioning strategies.

Samsung’s blitz Krieg of Marketing and product launches took everyone by surprise few years back. Before many realized, Samsung had firmly placed its grip on the Smart Phone market. If most industry reports are to be believed and followed, Apple is in for a tough fight due to Samsung while HTC, Sony, Nokia and even the great Blackberry are trying to catch-up with some of the key ground that they’ve lost to Samsung.

The latest launches from Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy S4 are an intriguing offering. Though many would find it hard to distinguish between the Galaxy S3 and S4, the S4 is surely and advanced version of the S3 and has a lot to offer to its ever expanding consumer base. The one change that most people were expecting and were disappointed was in the body of Galaxy S4. The plastic-like appearance of the Galaxy S3 walks in rebranded with the Galaxy S4.

The full HD AMOLED screen is fast becoming a signature mark for Galaxy S4. The Galaxy S4 works to the advantage of the consumer with improved looks and screen resolution. The body is smaller and thinner as compared to the Galaxy S3. At 5 inches the phone certainly has a longer display surface as compared to its competitors like the HTC One and Sony Xperia Z. however; the resolution hardly gets distorted thanks to the pan-viewing angle of the device.

The 1.6 GHz processor with a 2 GB RAM is a decent combination. Though, HTC One and Sony Xperia Z houses better processors, the Galaxy S4’s processor gets the job done for the Jelly bean Android OS. Samsung is good at packing small innovations with high impact on the users. With the Galaxy S4, the new Smart Stay technology claims to ad an intuitive feel to user experience. It tracks the eyeball movement of the user and pause the videos on gaze.

The internet browsing experience is taken to a whole new level. A 2600 MaH battery powering the Galaxy S4 supports the device positively. A 13 MPa rare camera works well to its favour but the front camera is frankly a disappointment. The internal and external memory is not a cause of concern in any of the high end smart phones, and Galaxy S4 is not an exception to the same.

Samsung has invested heavily in the marketing campaigns and strongly favoured a guerrilla marketing strategy for most of its launches. Having set the benchmark quite high with the galaxy S3, the galaxy S4’s pre-launch hype certainly created a lot of anticipation around the seemingly feature-rich phone. But, what eventually turned out was a (comparatively) dismal show from a phone that was set to revolutionize the smart phone market and drive the fringe elements of Sony, LG and HTC out of the competition. Instead, Galaxy S4 has provided them an opportunity to come back and strike Samsung hard by making a dent in its market share.

Samsung is quick to learn from its mistakes. It definitely would have sensed the mood after the galaxy S4’s launch. With the HTC One and Sony Xperia Z knocking hard on their doors, Blackberry gearing up with Z10 and Q10, Samsung’s investments in R&D will have to be ramped up and complemented with smart product features. A long standing complaint about the ‘plastic-feel’ in Samsung Galaxy series has to be addressed in its next version. Especially with the competitors edging them up.