Samsung Galaxy S4 Release Date To Arrive After May 2013, Says Company's Facebook Page

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 is still one of the top-selling phones in the world, but some fans are already getting excited about what the company could be releasing next. Like clockwork, speculation about 2013’s next-generation devices is beginning to gain momentum just as the New Year has begun. Rumors about a Galaxy S4 smartphone have been spreading since the summer, but now the first allegedly leaked photo has hit the Web.

Some recent rumors hinted that the Galaxy S4 could debut in April, but Samsung Lebanon recently posted on its Facebook page that the device won’t launch before May 2013.

While this does little to narrow down a precise release date beyond sometime after May, it does tell us confirm the name of the device and that it is in production.

Samsung news blog Sam Mobile reportedly received a “huge tip” from a Samsung "insider" who said that the device shown in a recently "leaked" photo is indeed the next Galaxy S phone. It’s important to remember that this must be considered heavy rumor since Samsung has yet to reveal any information about the next-gen device. While Sam Mobile claims that an “insider” has confirmed that this is the Galaxy S3 successor, the website does little to back up this assertion or cite where the image came from. The purported Galaxy S4 picture has merely been referred to as a "press photo" but Sam Mobile has not revealed any more details about its origin.

However, the image does look fairly convincing. If the photo is accurate, this appears to be an early design of what the next Galaxy phone could look like. The purported device maintains the same rounded form factor as its predecessor but is missing the elongated home button at the bottom. It also seems to have a larger screen and longer body than the Galaxy S3, but since this seems to be an early rendition it’s difficult to determine much else. It bears striking similarity to the Galaxy Note 2 as well, but does seem to have a thinner and possibly lengthier body.

Sam Mobile speculates that the absence of a button at the bottom of the device indicates that it will use on screen buttons. The website also claims that the same source has more pictures of the purported Galaxy S4.

Rumors about the next Galaxy S smartphone began to gain traction when the Korea Times reported that the device could be unveiled at a European technology expo next month.

“Samsung is ready to unveil the next Galaxy smartphone- the Galaxy S4- at early next year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in the Spanish city of Barcelona,” an unnamed Samsung official reportedly told the Korean news source in September.

The electronics manufacturer was quick to squash this rumor, but that didn’t stop the rumor mill from kicking into high gear. Following that report, another article surfaced in a different Korean newspaper called Digital Daily. This time Samsung fans learned a bit more about the specs that could be implemented in the next-generation Galaxy S device. Digital Daily reported that the rumored Galaxy S4 will be powered by a quad-core system-on-a-chip that will be based on the Cortex A-15. The codename for this processor is allegedly “Adonis,” but since this hasn’t been confirmed by Samsung it can only be considered speculation.

Samsung will reportedly bring the S4 to next week’s Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES) in Las Vegas, but only for its high-profile partners, according to Ubergizmo. Samsung fans should not expect to see a new Galaxy S phone at CES 2013, but the company is expected to publicly showcase some new TVs.