The forgotten smartphone: Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom

July 18, 2022 Luisa Rey

We have a cage gem in this edition of ‘The forgotten smartphone’; the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom. The smartphone with Android was launched in 2013. As the name of the device already reveals, we are dealing here with a special camera phone. There is plenty to say about the device.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom

In our ‘Forgotten’ section we previously discussed the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, a device that stood out because it had a real camera lens. A technique that we also saw with the Galaxy Camera, also released by Samsung. The next phone that we can place in this list is the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom. The name suggests that the device is a camera variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, but that is not quite the case. The image quality was smaller and less in terms of resolution with the Zoom model and we also saw completely different technical properties.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom offered a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels. In addition, the smartphone was equipped with a Pega processor, a dual-core chipset, assisted by 1.5GB RAM and 8GB (fortunately expandable) storage space. The battery capacity of the device was 2330 mAh and fast charging, which we did not know at the time. On the front, the Galaxy S4 Zoom had a 1.9 megapixel front camera.

Of course, the real attention went to the back of the device. There, the smartphone was equipped with a camera module as we saw with a compact camera at the time; something you hardly see today. This made the device a lot thicker; 15.4 millimeters and a lot heavier; 208 grams. Today many smartphones are so heavy in the higher end segment, but back then it was unique. Dual cameras and the like were out of the question at the time. There was a single 16 megapixel lens and you had to make do with that.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom camera

As extras, Samsung offered a Xenon flash, along with natural autofocus and optical image stabilization. With the extendable lens you could zoom 10x optically and you could reach a focal length of 24 to 240 millimeters. The camera app offered several options and possibilities; with of course also a manual expert mode. This allowed you to get started with adjusting things like aperture and shutter speed.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom was also released in the Netherlands and received a price tag of 549 euros at the time. Fun to watch; in the video below, the quality of the Galaxy S4 Zoom is compared with the Galaxy S21 Ultra released last year.