Samsung Galaxy S4 U.S. Release Details Emerge

The Samsung Galaxy S4, which is set to be announced later today, has already been confirmed for two carriers and one retailer in the United Kingdom. And now, we have our first Galaxy S4 U.S. carrier, an MVNO of Sprint called Ting, confirm that it will carry the Galaxy S4 and that it expects to start taking pre-orders in six to eight weeks.

Read: Samsung Galaxy S4 vs. iPhone 5S: Final Round.

In the past week, in the build up to today’s launch event, we’ve seen both Three UK and EE in the United Kingdom confirm the Galaxy S4 for their networks. EE, the only LTE carrier in the United Kingdom, has also essentially confirmed the unsurprising fact that the Galaxy S4 is a 4G LTE device. Phones4U, a retailer in the UK, has also confirmed the device for arrival. However, none of them revealed any type of timing.

Today, Sprint MVNO Ting, run by Tucows, has become the first U.S. carrier to announce Galaxy S4 U.S. release details, not only confirming the device for its network, and most likely Sprint’s, but also revealing some timing on the Galaxy S4’s arrival.

The carrier says that it expects to start taking pre-orders starting in six to eight weeks, which could bring us into either the month of May or early June. It says that it expects to ship a couple of weeks after that which lines up with Galaxy S4 U.S. release rumors that we’ve already heard about. Rumors suggest that it will arrive in the U.S. in May or June.

Of course, we don’t expect Ting to be the first carrier to get the Galaxy S4, but we don’t think it will be too far behind the rest of the pack. Considering it’s an MVNO of Sprint, this also seems to confirm the device for Sprint’s 4G LTE network, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Sprint carries both the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2.

Read: Samsung Galaxy S4 Confirmed for AT&T, Sprint and Verizon.

So far, AT&T and Verizon only have emerged as rumored Galaxy S4 carriers in the United States but we expect Sprint, T-Mobile and likely U.S. Cellular to emerge as carriers for the Galaxy S4 as well. Whether these are all announced at tonight’s event though is unclear.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is rumored to be a high-end smartphone, set to replace the Galaxy S3. The device is slated to have a 5-inch display with 1080p resolution, a quad-core processor, 13MP camera sensor, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, a number of Samsung smart software features and 4G LTE data speeds for a number of carriers around the world.