The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the newest, feature-packed, high-end flagship phone in the Galaxy line. The great news is that the S4 is also perfectly fine to be your first ever smartphone, if you or someone you love is brand new to smartphones! Easy Mode is an optional setting that lets you simplify the home screen with bigger icons and everyday favorite apps in front, so you can discover the S4 at your own pace. However, even new users can quickly realize this phone can enhance your life in a delightful way, and it’s not tough to master the basics en route to the really fun stuff.

The S4 is designed to be user-friendly, equipped with Android™ Jelly Bean straight out of the box. The large screen is great for games, photos, videos, etc. The infrared sensor on the S4 is the same technology as your remote control, so with WatchON™ you can change the TV channel from your phone, raise or reduce or mute volume, enter channels with the WatchON numeric keypad, and more. Essentially it can replace remote controls for your TV and set top boxes with a slim chance of “losing the remote” because we tend to be more careful with our phones than our remotes. You can get a custom TV guide right on the S4 showing you what you like watching because it gets familiar with your interests. Set-up is simple – it’s based on zip code and provider. With Samsung Hub, you can watch music, movies and games with one app and one sign-in. See this short demo on the Galaxy S4 as a remote control.

Multi-tasking on the S4 is another specialty. Now you needn’t wait until you’re on your desktop to edit a Microsoft Word® document, or switch back and forth between two apps. Samsung thinks it’s time doing little tasks became easier to free up time for the big things, the important things. Just an example: As you’re reading emails on the S4, you can Facebook too, all on one screen.

It has a 1080p HD Super AMOLED Plus display with a pixel density of 441ppi — an improvement over the Galaxy S III’s 306ppi display and the iPhone 5’s 326ppi retina display. While similar to the Galaxy S III, the S4 has a thinner bezel around the larger 5 inch display. The S4 uses its front-facing camera to detect when a user looks away from the video they’re watching and automatically pauses playback. Airview is like Samsung’s S Pen preview hover concept but with your finger. One neat trick is to use Airview with speed dial. Hand gestures (detected through a smart sensor near the top of the phone) allow users to scroll through pages and rearrange icons with hand motions. You can even set the phone to answer incoming phone calls with a hand wave (so your fingers, orange from nacho chips, won’t stain your phone)!

The S4 comes with 2GB of RAM — double that of the iPhone 5 —and 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of on-board storage, 2,600mAh 3.8 Volt, Lithium Ion battery (roughly 23% larger than the Galaxy S III), Chrome and Android Jelly Bean 4.2 internet browsing, quad-core processor for U.S. version, and way more not even listed here such as S Voice Drive and S Translate (see my videos on both of these, recorded live at the media unveling on March 14, 2013) and S Health. More highlights: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (5GHz), Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA supported easy content sharing (formerly known as AllShare Play, now it’s called Samsung Link), Dual Shot allows you to capture images from both the front and rear cameras simultaneously, while Eraser Shot captures multiple frames so that you can remove unwanted subjects. Drama Shot composites moving objects for action shots, and Sound & Shot combines audio with your image. Sound & Shot sounds like a cool tool for businesses too. Speaking of business use, the Galaxy S4 allows you to dictate (and the words will appear on your screen – so no typing if you hate typing!), and scan real business cards into your contacts list conveniently via its very smart optical reader. There are well over 150 features in the S4 and yes, you can just use the ones you like, but there’s a lot to discover too. Also be sure to read this short article on Forbes.com about what’s to like about the Samsung Galaxy S4 over the iPhone!

You can buy the Galaxy S4 through Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Cricket, BestBuy, RadioShack, Walmart, or C Spire. You can also order it directly from Sprint by calling 1-866-866-7509

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Okay, so maybe you’d like to first try an S4 in-person? Well, back in April, 300 guests were among the first to see and demo the Galaxy S4 through interactive stations at Samsung’s innovative retail concept known as the Samsung Experience Shop™. These shops will be installed in more than 1,400 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile specialty stores across the U.S. by early summer 2013. The shops allow customers to explore/ask, purchase/activate the broadest portfolio of Samsung mobile products and accessories. The Samsung Experience Shop was unveiled by JK Shin, CEO and President of IT and Mobile Business at Samsung; Hubert Joly, CEO of Best Buy; and Tim Baxter, President of Samsung Electronics America, in a ceremony at Best Buy’s Union Square store right here in New York City. The executives gave remarks on the new experience and officially opened the space to an audience of associates, executives and media. Guests toured the Samsung Experience Shop to use and learn how to do more at fun and cool interactive stations. To learn more about The Samsung Experience Shop, visit www.bestbuy.com/samsungexperienceshop

Reminders of what you get with the Sprint variant (model SPH-L720):  The talk time on this phone is up to 17 hours. Sizewise it’s 5.4” x 2.7” x .3” with gorgeous HD Super AMOLED Plus (1080X1920) 5 inch display, weighing in at 4.6 oz and boasting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.9 GHz quad-core processor, and you can have 64GB external storage via micro SD even with the 16GB and 32GB versions. It also has convenient NFC and GPS. The 13MP camera features include: Auto Focus; Dual-Camera; HD playback and HD recording; online image uploading; Dropbox®, Flipboard, Picasa™, Google+™, Wi-Fi Direct™; Animated Photo, Beauty Face, Best Face, Eraser Shot and more. Bluetooth® profiles are as follows: A2DP, AVRCP, GAVDP, VCP, VDP, HFP, PBAP, HSP, HID, FTP, BPP, BIP, SYNCH, GOEP, SDAP/SDP, DUN, OPP, SPP, PAN & Stereo Streaming (Source: Sprint.com)