What to Expect at Samsung’s Big Galaxy S 4 Launch Tonight

Here. We. Go.

Tonight, Samsung is holding a big launch event in New York, where it will unveil the Galaxy S 4 — its next flagship Android smartphone.

Samsung has been teasing the event with a series of cryptic images and YouTube videos, along with a marketing blitz for its other devices to promote them as devices that work well in the enterprise.

The Galaxy S III was widely considered to be the first major competition to the iPhone, and  proved to expose a hole in Apple’s armor with a combination of technology and hyper-aggressive marketing.

Apple came out swinging yesterday ahead of the launch event, with its marketing head Phil Schiller saying “Android is often given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn’t as good as an iPhone.” Still, that doesn’t stop the launch from being one of the most anticipated in tech.

Analysts say the new smartphone will likely have a faster chip and an improved camera, as is common to upgrade in a new generation of smartphones.

It is also expected to have a slightly bigger and higher-resolution five-inch AMOLED screen and longer battery life than the previous Galaxy S III model,  according to the same analysts cited in a report by The Wall Street Journal . The keyboard will be powered by SwiftKey, a technology that predicts the next thing that you will type based on your typing history on social networks and the Web, according to another WSJ report .

But the most attention will likely go to Samsung’s new software features. Software has been one of Samsung’s biggest weaknesses, so it is expected to show major progress in this area as it competes with Apple. At an All Things D conference last month, Samsung executive David Eun said the company was “ doubling down on software innovation .”

Thanks to a U.S. trademark filing in February for the “Samsung Eye Scroll,” the company is widely expected to introduce a feature called that lets uses scroll up and down a screen with only their eyes.

Then there’s the splashy event itself tonight. Samsung is unveiling the Galaxy S 4 at Radio City Music Hall, which seats 6,000. Given the venue, expect a musical tie-in, both with Samsung’s software and any entertainers that may appear on stage. The images on the company’s invite also teased music as a focus.

JK Shin, Samsung’s mobile boss, will be tasked with unveiling the phone on stage. The 57-year-old, while well-respected, is no Steve Jobs when it comes to promotion — he’s known as more low-key , and English isn’t his first language.

We’ll be live-blogging the event starting at 7 p.m. ET.

The next Galaxy smartphone from Samsung sets the stage for what should be a  big year for competition in the smartphone market BlackBerry ‘s big bet on a next-generation operating system coming out earlier this year and the next iPhone likely on the horizon.