Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is Half-Camera, Half-Smartphone

— -- It's official: Samsung has announced the Galaxy S4 Zoom, the most powerful smartphone-camera hybrid on the market today.

Check out its front side, and you'll see a device very similar to a Galaxy S4 Mini. It has a 4.3-inch qHD display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of storage memory (expandable via microSD cards, and a 1.9-megapixel camera.

On the back, it's a full-fledged camera, with a 16-megapixel sensor and 10x optical zoom, which is far better than on any other smartphone or smartphone-camera hybrid we've seen. It also sports an optical image stabilizer (OIS), and Samsung's Smart Mode, which automatically chooses the best settings for your photos.

LTE is also on board, as is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, and it's all powered by Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean).

At 125.5 x 63.5 x 15.4 mm, it's bulkier than most high-end smartphones today, but the Galaxy S4 Zoom truly sounds like it might fulfill the promise of bringing the "best of both worlds," as Samsung CEO and head of mobile JK Shin puts it.

The Galaxy S4 Zoom also throws quite a big gauntlet to Nokia, whose PureView technology has so far been the best camera tech in a smartphone, though never in a truly high-end one.

Pricing for the model has not yet been announced.

How do you like the idea of a smartphone-camera hybrid? Share your thoughts in the comments.

This story originally appeared on Mashable.com.