Samsung Galaxy S4 priced higher than iPhone 5 in the US

AT&T says it will start taking pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S4, the season's most eagerly awaited smartphone, on April 16 for $250. The amount is $50 above the usual introductory price for high-end smartphones, including Apple's iPhone 5.

AT&T didn't say when the phone will go on sale in stores, or when the pre-orders will be delivered, but pre-orders usually start a week or two before deliveries. The S4 is the successor to the Galaxy S III, which has been the biggest competitor to Apple's iPhone. AT&T is the first U.S. carrier to announce a price and pre-order date, but others have said they'll sell the phone. British carriers started taking pre-orders on Thursday.

So far, there is no word in regards to India availability or what could be the tentative price for this smartphone, but if the Amazon UK factory unlocked price of 699 pounds is any indication, we can expect a price-tag well in the north of Rs. 50,000.

Samsung had unveiled the Galaxy S4 smartphone on 14 March. The phone sports a 5-inch full-HD screen with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels, and pixel density of 441ppi. It is powered by 1.6GHz Exynos octa-core processor in some regions, and a 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor in others. It has 2GB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX544MP3 triple-core GPU.

The smartphone will come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants but will also feature a microSD card slot for expanding the memory. The Galaxy S4 sports a 13-megapixels rear shooter and a 2-megapixel one on the front. The Galaxy S4 also offers more camera features including dual-shot, employing the use of both front and back camera, an eraser shot mode to remove people from photos, and a Cinemagram like feature called Cinema Photo, among several other tricks.

With inputs from AP