Samsung Galaxy S4 thread - See Mod Warning in Post #1

Alpha Dog 1

WolfForager wrote: »

Once again Chet, and I remember saying this this time last year as well :P Myself, and many others, have a preference for design over software. Which, once again, means HTC beat Sammy to a pulp. I won't be buying either of them, waiting for the fabled "X Phone", but if I were to choose, I'd take the One hands down.

And yes, the kid freaked me out too.

Design is only one aspect of it though Wolf.
The HTC phones tend be better designed, better made phone but top end Samsung phones look nicer imo. My S3 is nicer than my friends one X no doubt, he even admits it.

Also, the feel of the phone in your hand can be surprising. I was amazed how good the S3 felt in the hand. I had been looking at the one X for a while but the first time I got the S3 in hand I bought it straight away.

I suppose it comes down to personal preference but I dont think anyone should decide on a phone by just looking at pictures.
In an ideal world It would be great to get each phone for a day to see which one was preferred.
Won't be making up my mind until I've held them in my hand, unfortunately the will most likely rule out the nexus 4.

WolfForager

Alpha Dog 1 wrote: »

Design is only one aspect of it though Wolf.
The HTC phones tend be better designed, better made phone but top end Samsung phones look nicer imo. My S3 is nicer than my friends one X no doubt, he even admits it.

Also, the feel of the phone in your hand can be surprising. I was amazed how good the S3 felt in the hand. I had been looking at the one X for a while but the first time I got the S3 in hand I bought it straight away.

I suppose it comes down to personal preference but I dont think anyone should decide on a phone by just looking at pictures.
In an ideal world It would be great to get each phone for a day to see which one was preferred.
Won't be making up my mind until I've held them in my hand, unfortunately the will most likely rule out the nexus 4.

I'm the complete opposite! I have the One X myself that I use daily. Also have a S3 sitting at home (not technically mine, but I could use it if wanted to). Overall I think the One X has fantastic design and would much prefer it to the S3 and I think with the new One, HTC have gone even further. Looking at the reviews and pictures of the One and I can't help feeling tempted to take out a loan and buy one, the S4 inspires no such silly notions!

Liamalone

Alpha Dog 1 wrote: »

The HTC phones tend be better designed, better made phone but top end Samsung phones look nicer imo. My S3 is nicer than my friends one X

Also, the feel of the phone in your hand can be surprising. I was amazed how good the S3 felt in the hand.

Wow, just wow. Has your friend covered his One X in dog turd or what?

As for how they feel, solid phone vs plastic phone = one winner.

imo of course

Alpha Dog 1

Personal preference I suppose, but s3 is nicer to look at imo

Zonda999

I think Samsung "winning" between them and HTC comes down to a couple of reasons. I do think Samsungs phones look nicer and are probably simpler to operate. IMO, the S3 beats the One X in terms of looks hands down.Same with the S2 versus Sensation and S1 versus the Desire. not so sure about this year yet, wouldn't comment unttil I've seen both phones in the flesh. As well though, I think Samsung, for the last couple of years anyway, has had more phones on the market at the right time with the right price points.

As regards the S4, coming from someone who owned the S1 and S2, i think its fair to say this is the smallest step up so far., in terms of design and hardware. Maybe, I'll change my opinion when I actually play with one but I can;t see this being a major step up.

Maybe, as others have said, it'll be the software that will be the differentiating factor but I can't help but think that a lot of the new software is pretty gimmicky, and could be done as well using an app from then play store. In terms of hardware, if you consider a quad core chip to be adequate, the only big upgrades are the doubling of RAM to 2gb (Which the Nexus 4 also has) and the 13MP camera. In fairness to Samsung, they are remaining consistent and keeping the removal battery and microSD slot when almost everyone else seems to be going in a different direction. And despite what anyone says, it is just plan useful to have both of these "features". Plenty people aren't ready to go the way of cloud storage just yet

So all in all, in terms of hardware it s an upgrade but If I was a S3 owner, and as a Nexus 4 owner, I really see no need to upgrade to this. From an S2, it would be a nice jump alright. In fairness in a way we're probably getting to a stage whereby the rapid advancement in smartphones will start to slow down a bit

Zonda999

Zonda999 wrote: »

I think Samsung "winning" between them and HTC comes down to a couple of reasons. I do think Samsungs phones look nicer and are probably simpler to operate. IMO, the S3 beats the One X in terms of looks hands down.Same with the S2 versus Sensation and S1 versus the Desire. not so sure about this year yet, wouldn't comment unttil I've seen both phones in the flesh. As well though, I think Samsung, for the last couple of years anyway, has had more phones on the market at the right time with the right price points.

As regards the S4, coming from someone who owned the S1 and S2, i think its fair to say this is the smallest step up so far., in terms of design and hardware. Maybe, I'll change my opinion when I actually play with one but I can;t see this being a major step up.

Maybe, as others have said, it'll be the software that will be the differentiating factor but I can't help but think that a lot of the new software is pretty gimmicky, and could be done as well using an app from then play store. In terms of hardware, if you consider a quad core chip to be adequate, the only big upgrades are the doubling of RAM to 2gb (Which the Nexus 4 also has) and the 13MP camera. In fairness to Samsung, they are remaining consistent and keeping the removal battery and microSD slot when almost everyone else seems to be going in a different direction. And despite what anyone says, it is just plan useful to have both of these "features". Plenty people aren't ready to go the way of cloud storage just yet

So all in all, in terms of hardware it s an upgrade but If I was a S3 owner, and as a Nexus 4 owner, I really see no need to upgrade to this. From an S2, it would be a nice jump alright. In fairness in a way we're probably getting to a stage whereby the rapid advancement in smartphones will start to slow down a bit

I think you miss the biggest reason why Samsung is winning.....marketing. Samsung have marketed a bunch of gimmicks that very few people probably use, but their marketing budget just boggles the mind.

I still wouldn't class a removable battery and SD card as something that even matters to most people, but it is great that Samsung still offer it. Using an SD card is becoming more and more 'old school', and the cloud seems to be where things are going. Dropbox backup of photos are great, for example.

With the One X and SGS 3, the HTC won out on display, camera and aesthetics. I have never seen anyone say they prefer the look of an SGS3 over the One X, until reading this just now. Samsung was a better performer, had better battery life, and arguably better software (although I much prefer Sense over Touchwiz). If both had the same marketing budget, I would say the One X would have been more popular.

I still expect the SGS4 to sell extremely well, far outselling it's closest competitors. I'm going back to HTC though, partly because it is a truly innovative phone. I think Samsung have taken the lazy Apple option, and should have called it the SGS3S. All they've done is increase all specs slightly, and come up with a couple of new gimmicks that most people won't use. For €600 or so, I would like them to try a little bit harder.

evolutionqy7

Basil3 wrote: »

I still wouldn't class a removable battery and SD card as something that even matters to most people, but it is great that Samsung still offer it. Using an SD card is becoming more and more 'old school', and the cloud seems to be where things are going. Dropbox backup of photos are great, for example.

If photos are the only thing you backing up its fine, your not going to stream a season of series. Even with Three's unlimited data you would still end up going in and out of 3G. While travelling.

I think removable battery and mSD are very important for power users, power users are usually to praise the phone in the start. Their the early adopter that tells the other simple folks to go ahead with it. If their mind is blow they will probably just review the product as meh and wont rush other people into buying one.

Dont forget, one happy customer can do a **** load of marketing without even knowing.

I didnt care that much about the mSD card till I got a 64GB one, I had a 16GB one for the past two years and that and the internal memory kept filling up with music plus some videos. So ended up upgrading. Its just so nice not having to worry about that aspect of the phone.

PLUS a huge benefit is that if your phone ever gets damaged. All the pics are usually on the msd card and not internal memory.

Alpha Dog 1

Marketing does play a massive role, especially when trying to attract the masses. Someone had to do it to challenge apple.

I'd happily buy the one. It looks a fantastic phone, hopefully it doesn't suffer from slow releases of a new os. Think it only ships with 4.1.2. Updates have been slow in the past.
That and the less powerful battery along with it not being removeable works against it.

Can't wait for these to be in shops!

evolutionqy7

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

If photos are the only thing you backing up its fine, your not going to stream a season of series. Even with Three's unlimited data you would still end up going in and out of 3G. While travelling.

I think removable battery and mSD are very important for power users, power users are usually to praise the phone in the start. Their the early adopter that tells the other simple folks to go ahead with it. If their mind is blow they will probably just review the product as meh and wont rush other people into buying one.

Dont forget, one happy customer can do a **** load of marketing without even knowing.

I didnt care that much about the mSD card till I got a 64GB one, I had a 16GB one for the past two years and that and the internal memory kept filling up with music plus some videos. So ended up upgrading. Its just so nice not having to worry about that aspect of the phone.

PLUS a huge benefit is that if your phone ever gets damaged. All the pics are usually on the msd card and not internal memory.

You're correct in a lot of what you say. Unfortunately 'power users' equate to a very small percentage of phone users. I would consider myself a fairly heavy user, and everyone's usage patterns are different.

I personally don't watch much on my phone. I don't like the 'black crush' on an amoled screen in dark scenes, once you tune in to it it's very annoying. In any case, I have a 32gb USB stick which I hook up via USB OTG if I want to marathon through a series when travelling. There's definitely other options out there. You always have the risk that your micro SD can become corrupted, something that happens all too often.

I just hope we don't have to wait too long to see the One and SGS4 in Ireland. I'm leaning heavily towards the One at this stage because I think the SGS4 will have a worse screen and camera, two things that are probably most important to me. I really think Samsung have made a mistake with the camera, but I'm sure we will see as more reviews come out.

omega666

Lads HTC is not even in the same league as Samsung anymore.
Its a company in serious decline since the HTC desire.
Samsung have beaten them with every phone since then and the market reflects that. Everyone i know who 2 years ago were praising HTC now owns a Samsung phone.

omega666

omega666 wrote: »

Lads HTC is not even in the same league as Samsung anymore.
Its a company in serious decline since the HTC desire.
Samsung have beaten them with every phone since then and the market reflects that. Everyone i know who 2 years ago were praising HTC now owns a Samsung phone.

Probably since the Sensation, in all reality. It wasn't until the SGS2 that Samsung started to dominate.

In any case, Google will realise it's not good for a single manufacturer to dominate Android. I think Samsung have guaranteed the success of the SGS4 off the back of the SGS3, but they are playing it too safe. People aren't going to be willing to pay €600 for plastic phones forever, and it's good to see a bit of competition.

Nolimits

omega666 wrote: »

Lads HTC is not even in the same league as Samsung anymore.
Its a company in serious decline since the HTC desire.
Samsung have beaten them with every phone since then and the market reflects that. Everyone i know who 2 years ago were praising HTC now owns a Samsung phone.

We've not stumbled across a Samsung fanboy now have we?

Yes Samsung have killed it with the last two phones, but HTC are only one popular phone away from taking some of Samsungs market and the HTC one may just be the phone to do it. The S4 certanily looks like a fairly lazy upgrade and while a lot of their new features are in themselves quite cool (if a little gimmicky) I'm just not sure I'd ever use it. The camera improvements are probably a good example, yes it's quite cool that the person taking the photo can also be in it, but I'm not sure I'd ever bother doing it. Taking people out of the background is also quite cool, but again I don't know if I'd ever bother doing it. Ditto with the health app, especially if I have to tell it what I'm eating. I just think with the HTC One the things they have focused on are largely things I do like (except maybe the Zoes) I like the design, I like the really loud speakers and blinkfeed may become a genuine alternative to Flipboard.

One thing HTC does have going against it is the slow updates, though with their new streamlined approach and only having one flagship phone I do hope this will speed up the process.

SpannerMonkey

This thread is deteriorating in to a fanboy bit*h fest , its a thread about the S4 grow up for feck sake if you like the HTC great go buy one but stop this crap and same for samsung fanboys

Nolimits

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

This thread is deteriorating in to a fanboy bit*h fest , its a thread about the S4 grow up for feck sake if you like the HTC great go buy one but stop this crap and same for samsung fanboys

Wouldn't call myself a fan boy, I've owned one phone from each company, a HTC Desire and my current Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

evolutionqy7

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

This thread is deteriorating in to a fanboy bit*h fest , its a thread about the S4 grow up for feck sake if you like the HTC great go buy one but stop this crap and same for samsung fanboys

Were comparing other phones to the S4. I think this falls into the discussion thread extremely nice and it happens in each thread. Your going to want to come compare x before y before you spend 600-700 hard earned bucks on it.

I reserve all judgment to soke actual hands on time, both the HTC One and S4 look awesome on the spec sheet.

Each to their own. We will see who really has the edge when average folks get their hands on it. Battery life would be my main point of focus before anything else so because of removable batteries I'd definitely pick S4. I really don't think the bump in mah. Will extend its battery life vs S3.

There's a lot more cores and pixels to power now. Regardless of what each OEM says on chips and efficiency. I've never experienced any of those efficiencies in so many years :-)

Zonda999

Basil3 wrote: »

You're correct in a lot of what you say. Unfortunately 'power users' equate to a very small percentage of phone users. I would consider myself a fairly heavy user, and everyone's usage patterns are different.

I personally don't watch much on my phone. I don't like the 'black crush' on an amoled screen in dark scenes, once you tune in to it it's very annoying. In any case, I have a 32gb USB stick which I hook up via USB OTG if I want to marathon through a series when travelling. There's definitely other options out there. You always have the risk that your micro SD can become corrupted, something that happens all too often.

I just hope we don't have to wait too long to see the One and SGS4 in Ireland. I'm leaning heavily towards the One at this stage because I think the SGS4 will have a worse screen and camera, two things that are probably most important to me. I really think Samsung have made a mistake with the camera, but I'm sure we will see as more reviews come out.

Yeah, I agree Samsung have done very well with marketing fairly gimmick'y features that few will use. It worked with the S3 so it will more than likely work with he S4. i do genuinely prefer the S3's looks over the htc's though, believe it or not. I'd disagree as regards display too tbh. i definitely prefer AMOLED screens to LCD. I recently switched from a S2 to a Nexus 4 and the only way I think i'm going backwards is as regards the screen. The IPS LCD just doesn't wow like an AMOLED IMHO.Another couple things I gotta mention though, and I;m am no Samsung fan boy, but from people i know who have had htc phones, is that they cause a few more problems than Samsung phones, as regards just general faults. i could be totally wrong though. I i think the perception of crap battery life on htc's is still there and if you read reviews of the one, it still has those issues.

Hopefully for OS updates, the new more stripped back SENSE will allow for quicker updates if htc have to do less tinkering with it

Sofiztikated

omega666 wrote: »

Lads HTC is not even in the same league as Samsung anymore.
Its a company in serious decline since the HTC desire.
Samsung have beaten them with every phone since then and the market reflects that. Everyone i know who 2 years ago were praising HTC now owns a Samsung phone.

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

This thread is deteriorating in to a fanboy bit*h fest , its a thread about the S4 grow up for feck sake if you like the HTC great go buy one but stop this crap and same for samsung fanboys

Some people are able to compare things, objectively, without it devolving into a SAMUNG!!! NO, HTC!!! G'WAY, IPHONE!!!!!! slinging match.

I love my SGS2. I think it's a brilliant phone. But I couldn't take to the SGS3, due to what felt like flimsiness. I'll have to get the SGS4 in my hand, before I make a call on whether I like it or not.

I do have to say, I'm not a fan of this super feather light stuff. Give me a phone that feels.... real, I suppose.

kaimera

current gs3 owner, not pushed on changing yet. s4 has nothing of interest.

let's hope the s4 doesn't suffer from the s3 sudden death issues etc.

Thor

kaimera wrote: »

current gs3 owner, not pushed on changing yet. s4 has nothing of interest.

let's hope the s4 doesn't suffer from the s3 sudden death issues etc.

I doubt it will since it's a new CPU/GPU and is likely not to have the same issues, although other issues could arise with the whole dual quad core set up, but I would say they are putting a lot of effort into ironing out any bugs and getting efficiency up as high as possible.

While the design hasn't changed much, Samsung did update nearly everything on it.

CPU/GPU, Camera, Screen, Battery, OS(obviously), Sensors. The WiFi AC was a nice addition and DC-HSDPA (come on Ireland get LTE up and running already)

I do like some of the gimmicky features, like air view and dual camera(video calling) not really sure about taking dual camera pictures.

Currently using a Galaxy Note 2, but will change over to the S4. Although I can imagine switching to the Note 3 when that comes out.

Thor

Thor wrote: »

I doubt it will since it's a new CPU/GPU and is likely not to have the same issues, although other issues could arise with the whole dual quad core set up, but I would say they are putting a lot of effort into ironing out any bugs and getting efficiency up as high as possible.

While the design hasn't changed much, Samsung did update nearly everything on it.

CPU/GPU, Camera, Screen, Battery, OS(obviously), Sensors. The WiFi AC was a nice addition and DC-HSDPA (come on Ireland get LTE up and running already)

I do like some of the gimmicky features, like air view and dual camera(video calling) not really sure about taking dual camera pictures.

Currently using a Galaxy Note 2, but will change over to the S4. Although I can imagine switching to the Note 3 when that comes out.

I'm same as you, on the note 2. Am still undecided, as I don't think the S4 offers enough of an upgrade from the S3, let alone the Note 2. The camera offers new features, but not necessarily better quality, and these features will no doubt come to the Note. I have also read about issues with the new chipset, with thermal throttling and battery life problems. I trust Samsung will sort this out anyway.

With two young kids and most of my quick snapshots being taken in low light (hey, it's Ireland after all!), I would have preferred Samsung to improve the camera quality rather than add more megapixels and extra features.

murpho999

Basil3 wrote: »

I'm same as you, on the note 2. Am still undecided, as I don't think the S4 offers enough of an upgrade from the S3, let alone the Note 2. The camera offers new features, but not necessarily better quality, and these features will no doubt come to the Note. I have also read about issues with the new chipset, with thermal throttling and battery life problems. I trust Samsung will sort this out anyway.

With two young kids and most of my quick snapshots being taken in low light (hey, it's Ireland after all!), I would have preferred Samsung to improve the camera quality rather than add more megapixels and extra features.

Sorry to be a pain but people demanding 'better cameras on phone is just too much.
It's lens size and quality that count and that would have a serious impact on phone size and form to amend.

If you are serious about photography then buy a real camera and also there is no low light in Ireland ( cloudy days are the best days for photos as bright sunlight just washes everything out)

mad muffin

Watching a few of the after show hands on videos I've noticed a couple of things.

The screen is very resilient to reflections and finger prints, when they compared it to the nexus 4/iphone5/xz and the htc one.

The coating they used on the plastic makes it easy to wipe finger prints off.

If anyone has used or owned a black soft touch polycarbonate or dark coloured anodised aluminium phone knows how hard it is to remove oils from them.

evolutionqy7

murpho999 wrote: »

Sorry to be a pain but people demanding 'better cameras on phone is just too much.
It's lens size and quality that count and that would have a serious impact on phone size and form to amend.

If you are serious about photography then buy a real camera and also there is no low light in Ireland ( cloudy days are the best days for photos as bright sunlight just washes everything out)

You obviously don't point it at the sunlight. Seriously the more light you can get the better quality picture it will be. On any phone I ever owned. The darker or cloudier it gets the more grainy and dark and colourless the pictures come out.

Try taking a picture of a landscape or mountains in close range on a clear blue sky with the sun and on a dark cloudy day. You would see the difference clear as day!

murpho999

murpho999 wrote: »

Sorry to be a pain but people demanding 'better cameras on phone is just too much.
It's lens size and quality that count and that would have a serious impact on phone size and form to amend.

If you are serious about photography then buy a real camera and also there is no low light in Ireland ( cloudy days are the best days for photos as bright sunlight just washes everything out)

I was only joking about it always being low light in Ireland, it's a nice day out there as we speak.

I do have a digital SLR, which is great for when I know I want to take photos. I'm talking about those spur of the moment times when I only have my phone on me and I might be in the living room at night, or out at a restaurant, and the only pictures I can take are blurry and/or grainy.

There's a lot more to nice photos that the lens size and quality, and more megapixels isn't always better. In some cases it's actually worse. My digital SLR is only 6.1 megapixels, and it takes amazing pictures which still look good at A4 size (the largest I've personally had prints done), so I don't see why the focus is on more and more megapixels on mobile phones.

Here's an example of a photo I took this morning on my Note 2....

beno619

So no Exynos 5 for the UK?

http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-s-4-exynos-5-model-reportedly-not-coming-to-uk-20274752/

AlmightyCushion

beno619 wrote: »

So no Exynos 5 for the UK?

http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-s-4-exynos-5-model-reportedly-not-coming-to-uk-20274752/

That'd actually make me more likely to buy it. The exynos processors are great but without sources and documentation they are a pain for the custom rom community.

Meesared

It looks like the LTE version is without Exynos, so that will likely mean we will have the Exynos version here, since we have no LTE equipped networks

beno619

Vodafone will the rolling out LTE on there top tier bill plan by the end of month, With full rollout by the summer, I doubt the other networks will be far behind.

Thor

Meesared wrote: »

It looks like the LTE version is without Exynos, so that will likely mean we will have the Exynos version here, since we have no LTE equipped networks

Wouldn't be so sure. The Three specs show it has a 1.9GHz quad core processor, meaning it's the Snapdragon version.

Perhaps they just copied the wrong specs, but to be honest, Three are getting ready for their LTE network for the second half of this year and I think they might want their Galaxy S4 users to benefit from it.

King Krib

I'm really considering a Note 2 at the minute ,I like the idea of the big screen and it has some great features plus I could have my hands on one at a good price.
My question is... Is the S4 worth the extra undisclosed price difference? I use my phone a lot, email ,browsing, gaming etc... Even the odd YouTube video. Would I notice any great difference between the phones in everyday use gimmicks aside.