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The Samsung Galaxy S4 has shifted an impressive 20 million units since its launch earlier this year, confirming Samsung's position as the king of the smartphone arena - in pure sales terms, at least. The Korean firm is now hard at work buttressing that position by expanding the Galaxy S4 line with additional phones catering to a wider audience. We've already seen the hybrid that is the Galaxy S4 Zoom - a marriage of mobile and camera which is more successful than you might expect - and the Galaxy S4 Mini offers an entry point for those on more modest budgets. The Galaxy S4 Active, on the other hand, offers something a little more appealing to those who aim to be at the vanguard of mobile tech; give or take a few technical changes, it's essentially the same phone as the standard Galaxy S4, but with a welcome twist: it's waterproof and dust resistant. This isn't a new trick by any means - Panasonic's almost forgotten Eluga dL1 and Sony's Xperia Z both boast similar levels of protection from the elements - but the difference here is that Samsung has applied the concept to what is arguably the world's most popular smartphone.
From the front, the S4 Active appears to be a close match for its best-selling sibling. The biggest change occurs below the screen, with the single physical home button replaced by a trio of keys - a necessity when you consider that a wet capacitive touchscreen is next to useless. Turn the phone over in your palm and you're greeted with a plastic back panel boasting honeycomb-effect texturing, bookended by two rubber-coated plastic panels which are held in place with shiny chrome screws. While the original Galaxy S4 was criticized for looking a little too much like its direct predecessor, the S4 Active feels like an entirely fresh design.
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