Samsung Galaxy S4, Black 16GB (Verizon Wireless)..
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435 of 455 people found the following review helpful.
By Zain
Before I picked up my Galaxy S4, I had the Galaxy Note II. I put my Note II up for sale online before my S4 was supposed to arrive, and it sold around two weeks before the S4 was supposed to be released, so for the two weeks before my S4 arrived, I had been living with a Droid X. Keep this in mind during my review, as my findings may have been slightly tainted by the fact that the S4 is such a massive upgrade from the Droid X, which I can hardly consider to be a "modern phone" anymore. Anyway, I'd like to go through the S4's hardware (screen, construction, camera, internals) then its software and any miscellaneous things I hadn't mentioned so far.
Screen
The Galaxy S4's screen is unbelievably high quality. It is a 4.99" 1920 x 1080 panel, and colors are extremely sharp and vivid. Text looks fantastic, and because the resolution is so high, I haven't had a problem decreasing the font size to fit more information on my display. The display is 441 pixels per inch; in comparison, the S3's is 308 ppi, a 43% increase! The screen is a massive improvement from the S3 or the Note II. Super AMOLED HD panels like this one make colors really pop, which isn't a problem for me, but some people prefer to have a more realistic/neutral panel on their phones. There is a display setting that you can adjust to make the screen more neutral though, which should help alleviate any issues people have with the S4's standard setup.
Physical Construction/Phone Exterior
The Galaxy S3 was said by Samsung to be inspired by nature, so they made it with very curved sides like a pebble. With the S4, this mantra is refined a little bit. There is a metallic band that circles the phone's sides, and the swooping curves of the S3's back are straightened out a little. The result looks significantly more sophisticated and "grown up" than the S3. The back of the phone has a "Hyperglaze" finish with a light pattern printed on it, which is interesting but not distractingly so. The pattern is not very easy to see unless you hold the phone close to you or at an angle from a light source. I chose the white S4 because I think white may hide scratches and scuffs better than black, but both colors are enticing. One thing I am happy about is that this phone doesn't have Verizon's garish logo plastered right onto the home button like it was on the Note II. Make no mistake though, Verizon's version of the S4 still has a jumbo Verizon logo as well 4G LTE one on the phone's back. I would definitely get a replacement back without these ugly logos if I didn't use a case.
The volume, power, and home buttons are all substantially upgraded from Samsung's previous phones. They have a nice satisfying click, they don't wobble, and they are easy to feel without looking. I especially like the fact that the S4's home button is in the middle of the bottom bezel, instead of at the bottom like it was in the S3. Speaking of bezels, this phone has practically none. This phone feels like all screen basically, which explains how Samsung got a 4.99" screen into a body that is actually slightly smaller than the S3's body (which had a 4.8" screen), making it the smallest ~5" 1080p phone in the world! Even though the S4 is larger than an iPhone, it feels much more compact due to the great use of space and tiny bezels.
A few more things: the S4 feels very light, but the metallic band around the phone makes it feel sturdy. Also, the screen is covered in Gorilla Glass 3 - although you probably can't scratch it with your keys, I still wouldn't recommend dropping it a lot. I bought a soft touch plastic case on Amazon from Elago for my S4 and I really like it, as it keeps the phone more protected while not making it look like an ugly brick. I still love how the power button is on the side of the S4 (unlike phones like the HTC One or the iPhone 5), as it feels like a much more natural position for turning the phone on and off when in your hand.
Internals
The Galaxy S4 has a quad core Snapdragon 600 processor and 2 GB ram, and in my time so far, I still haven't seen any of the occasional lag I felt when I tried a S4 out at AT&T (maybe this is what took Verizon an extra month in releasing the S4). The international version of the phone has 8 cores - a low powered quad core processor for idling and a high powered quad core processor for doing more intensive tasks. I'm a little disappointed that the U.S. didn't get that processor, but the Snapdragon 600 is no slouch. Regardless, I have gotten fantastic LTE service everywhere I've visited with the S4 so far.
The S4 comes with a 13 MP camera (although its set to take 9.6 MP photos by default). This camera is definitely an upgrade from anything else on the market. Not only does it capture a huge amount of detail in photos, but the software has so many useful features too. There are plenty of different modes to take pictures with, but the ones I've really played with and enjoyed are Drama Shot and Animated Photo Mode. Drama Shot basically takes a series of pictures and then stitches them together, which is useful when the subject is moving. I took a picture of my brother doing a flying kick on the lawn and it looks fantastic. The Animated Photo Mode is great, too - essentially, the S4 takes a series of shots and plays them sequentially in one image, like a gif. You can then choose which parts of the photo to animate and which to keep still. It may sound confusing, but it's actually relatively intuitive and fun when you try it out. I have seen comparisons between the S4 and the HTC One criticizing the S4's low light performance, so I tested it out for myself. On Auto mode, with the auto night detection off, the S4's photos in low light look poor. However, in Night mode, the photos improve immensely. Overall, the One's low light quality is better than the S4's, but the S4's camera is much better in all other situations. Of course, the "better camera" depends on each person's use for it, but unless you take most of your pictures in the dark, it probably makes sense to go for the S4's camera, which captures quite a bit more detail at all other times and is still decent in the dark. As a side note, the front facing camera is 2 MP, which is a slight upgrade from the 1.9 MP camera in the S3.
Like the S3 and the Note II, the S4 comes with a removable battery (2600 mAh) and a Micro SD card slot. I immediately put in my 64 GB card I got on Amazon and now I have plenty of space to store my photos, videos, and music. I haven't yet purchased a spare battery, but it is nice to know I have the option to do so if I want.
The S4 comes with approximately 1 million sensors - to name a few, an accelerometer, a temperature gauge, a barometer, two proximity sensors, an RGB notification light, two mics, and even more. One of my favorite things about Android is the notification light; you can instantly tell when your phone has an unread message or other notification. I haven't had a problem with any of the phone calls I've made with my S4, so clearly the noise canceling second mic is doing its job.
Software
I think that Android has always had more features than iOS but that iOS has always had more polish to it. After Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, I no longer find this to be true. Jelly Bean looks fantastic, and it is also very feature-rich. iOS on the other hand has stagnated. I owned the original iPhone and the iPhone 4, and other than the increased resolution (and the ability to add home screen backgrounds), the software on both phones looks practically identical. iOS, although once groundbreaking, now looks positively gaudy, with many of its apps containing over-the-top skeumorphic design - Game Center and Podcasts come to mind as particularly egregious examples. Android now offers a nice, clean interface that has finally caught up to iOS in terms of visual flair.
Jelly Bean isn't the massive overhaul that Ice Cream Sandwich was, but it definitely has some nice new features that I enjoy using. By long pressing on the home button and clicking on the Google icon, you can get to Google Now. Here, Google combines information that it already knows about you into sets of "cards" that appear throughout the day at (hopefully) the most helpful time. For instance, when I bought a case and screen protector, there was a card that told me that my package had shipped with UPS two day shipping, and it gave me the option to track it or viewa the confirmation email from Amazon. Google Now also tells you the local weather for the next three days, traffic home from work and other frequently visited places, and sports scores for your favorite teams. In addition, by saying "Google" or pressing the speech button while in Google Now, you can use Google's enhanced voice actions. Here, Google uses its algorithms to answer questions about people and places. You can ask it math questions, set alarms, send texts, call people, and do a ton of other things. Somehow, Google has done something to make these voice searches incredibly quick and accurate, often much more so than Apple's voice assistant Siri. If you want to see a funny video of the two compared, search on YouTube for "Google Search vs. Siri App Judgment" and skip to 3:31 in the video, it really shows how well Google's voice recognition algorithm works. Another feature introduced in Jelly Bean is expandable/actionable notifications. When I get a text message, I can drag down with one or two fingers on the notification to expand it to see the entire message. This also works with emails and many other types of notifications, as long as the developer has enabled it.
The Galaxy S4 runs Jellybean, aka Android 4.2.2., which is currently the most up to date Android version. It has a layer designed by Samsung that overlays Jellybean called Touchwiz, which has its pros and cons. In my opinion, pure, unmodified Jellybean looks significantly better than Touchwiz, but Touchwiz adds some pretty fantastic features that aren't present in stock Jellybean. It would be impossible to mention all the features present on this phone, but I will try to go over the most significant ones.
Multi Window: by holding the back button for a few seconds, multi window opens (or closes), allowing you to select and open two different apps simultaneously. One thing I really like doing is watching a video on YouTube while browsing on Chrome or sending a text.
Smart Stay/Rotation/Pause/Scroll: Smart Stay keeps the screen on while you're looking at it, which is useful if you do a lot of reading. Smart Rotation stops the screen from rotating along with the phone if it senses your face rotating along too (like if you're laying down in bed). Smart Pause pauses a video if you look away. Smart Scroll scrolls up and down by either tilting your head or tilting the phone up and down. Of course, these features don't work if the front facing camera can't see your face, so that limits their applicability in some situations.
Gestures: there are a huge number of gestures built into the phone. You can wave up or down to scroll in the browser, you can wave to answer a call or change songs, you can swipe your palm across the screen to take a screenshot, and you can put the phone up to your ear to start a call while in the messaging app.
Air View: this lets you preview messages, images, and other things in many of the built in apps by hovering your finger over them. It used to only work with the S Pen on the Note II, but now it can sense your finger, too.
Lock screen applications: I like these because they let you jump to an app right from the lock screen.
Swipe to call/text: In the dialer or contacts apps, you can swipe in one direction on a contact to call them and in the other to text them. This seems so simple, but it is extremely convenient.
Final Words
Although the Galaxy S4 doesn't deviate too far from the S3's look, it has been completely redesigned internally and has also received a whole set of new software features. It will probably take me a few weeks to evaluate the S4's battery life, but I will try to update this review with any further comments I may have. I have only had my S4 for a few days, but these are my impressions so far. If you have any questions, feel free to comment and ask me. The S4 is a fantastic phone and I have no qualms recommending it to anyone.
146 of 157 people found the following review helpful.
By BarbZ
I've been waiting for this phone for months, while also planning on switching carriers at the same time. Here's what I like about the phone:
Beautiful screen - for those of us who don't have perfect vision, this screen is very readable. The fonts are an appropriate size, with good contrast.
Nice speed. The screen is responsive, and allows multiple windows to be open at once.
Screen size: For certain apps, I.e. the kindle app, this screen approximates an e-reader very well (as opposed to reading on a smaller phone screen.)
The interface is very thoughtfully designed. Great job, Samsung! Unobtrusive, noninvasive methods of accessing critical apps are available from almost anyplace on the phone.
Icons/graphics are adorable, and creatively designed. No boring manila folders on this phone! Your folders show contents from the outside of the folder... Cute.
Ease of use: There is a little bit of a learning curve on this phone (I had the Samsung Epic previously), but I've pretty much figured it out in a few hours. It's going to be great. Once you get the hang of the graphics, it's really quick to move things around, personalize, etc.
It really blurs the boundary between a tablet and a phone, without becoming too huge, like the Note (which I am now glad I did not buy).
Voice quality: I'd read reviews in the last few days that state that it is not very good... I think it's fine. The sound is clear, and volume is fine.
One of my favorite apps for Android: Out of Milk. Running out of groceries? Scan the bar code into one of your shopping lists, (or input by voice or typing), and your shopping list is complete. I keep a running shopping list for Trader Joes, and my other local market. When I go to the store, I simply move the items I need to the top of the list, and go for it! No more paper lists!
One heads up: (carrier, not phone related): check on Visual Voicemail.... I use it all the time, and really like it. I was surprised to discover that I had to pay for it as an add on with Verizon.... It was part of my Sprint service previously.
** UPDATE **
I've had the phone for almost a week, and it's simply a PLEASURE to use! Lots of nice touches: pop up asking if you'd like to add someone to your contacts after a call from a non contact, for example.
Camera: is great. I photographed an entire exhibit in a museum.... No flash, in dark rooms, and the photos are stunning.
Battery life: surprisingly good! I used the phone all day yesterday, on and off trains where it would have been seeking service in tunnels (usually drains battery quicker), used my Kindle app, made calls, sent texts and emails, and I still had 60% at the end of a ten hour day.
Battery recharging: using the charging cord that comes with the phone, it charges in no time... A couple of hours at most. I've been amazed at the recharge speed, compared to my previous phone.
Kindle app is like a baby Kindle... there's just enough on the page to not feel like you are only reading a few sentences at a time like on some smaller devices.
I'm so pleased with my choice, I hope you enjoy it, also.
(And in case this is helpful to anyone: if you are debating about a case, I have the Seidio holster case... Please see my review.)
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UPDATE 2: June 9
The phone continues to work beautifully, but I wanted to give everyone a head's up:
Careful how you delete your photos. I thought I was deleting one picture, and deleted everything by accident! Back up your photos before you delete anything. Also, I wouldn't delete anything until you figure out the camera interface.... I hadn't had a chance to do a backup. And, read the 'confirm" carefully. It said do you want to delete this album... I didn't realize it was more than one photo until I hit 'yes', and there was no way to stop the delete at that point.
Luckily, I had emailed some of the photos, so I had a few of them, but the rest are gone.
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UPATE 3: June 22
Still loving the device. I use the camera daily.... Photo quality blows me away. It's great.
Check out the Samsung spare battery/ charger for the S4.... Please see my review. Very nice set.
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UPATE 4: July 6
I dropped the phone the other day from about 5 feet onto a hard floor. In the Seidio case, the phone was fine.... Please see my review of the case for more info.
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UPATE 5: October 11
I took some casual photos on my phone. They were good enough to use in a professionally produced brochure. The photos are stunning!
Enjoy this great device! Questions? Drop a note, and I'll get back to you.
145 of 165 people found the following review helpful.
By MOAR COARS
UPDATE#1: The battery life seems great, better than on the S3 even though the screen is larger and has a higher resolution than the S3. When I had my S3, I used to lose about ~3-5% of battery every two hours or so but with the S4, I seem to lose about ~1-2% so that's awesome. The phone comes with a ton of bloatware and the only way to get a good battery is by removing all the bloatware. I was getting terrible battery life when I first got my phone but after reading online it seems that everyone suggests removing the bloatware for batter battery life. Like I said in my review, the snapdragon 600 uses very little battery when it is not being used so that's a big plus. I'm a heavy user and when I say heavy user, I mean heavy user. I do pretty much everything on my phone from taking a crapload of pictures/videos, watching YouTube videos, playing 3D games, phone calls and surfing the internet. At the end of the day the phone has about 30-35% of juice left. Also, one thing that I forgot to mention was the speakers on the phone. Samsung decided to move the speakers which used to be at the top near the camera on the S3 to the bottom of the phone which wasn't a good idea if you ask me. You can block the sound coming from the phone when holding the phone with your hand.
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It's been a week since I got my Galaxy S4 and this thing is super awesome. My previous phone was the S3 which I loved to death and this time I'm super excited to have the S4 in my hands. I had absolutely zero issues with the S3 but the S4 looks so sexy with the metal edges. I seriously don't understand why people buy an iPhone because let me tell you that the Galaxy S4 blows the iPhone 5 out of the water and every other phone out there. The Galaxy S4 wins hands down in every category compared to the iPhone 5. I was blown away by the performance of this phone. The Snapdragon 600 is blazing fast and uses far less battery than the S3. I can get through the day with a single charge and still have 30% left at the end of the day. I'm a heavy user so this says a lot about the phone. Even my family who loves the iPhone is blown away by this phone. My family just loves the big screen and the customization that it has compared to the iPhone 5. There are many reasons why I decided to go with this phone over the other smartphones on the market but the main reason is the screen size, camera, storage, processor and the battery life.
These are some of the things that the Galaxy S4 has over the iPhone 5 and other high end phones:
Pros:
-Screen: The Galaxy S4 has a nice 5 inches Super AMOLED HD screen that makes everything stand out when viewing it. The resolution on this phone is a nice 1080 x 1920 (441ppi pixel density) which makes everything look sharp. The Gorilla Glass 3 is also much better at preventing the screen from cracking and scratching. I tried to scratch the screen with my car keys and nothing happened to the screen, impressive. It has a significantly higher resolution than the iPhone 5 (640 x 1136). Also, the iPhone 5 is only 4 inches which is way too small for most people.
-Android OS: This phone ships with the most up to date version of Android, Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) which is the fastest Android version yet. Samsung has added many new features to TouchWiz which is great. I'm not really a fan of TouchWiz but it seems that they have made many improvements to the UI.
-Design: The design is sort of the same as the S3 which I have no problems with. The S3's design is sexy and very comfortable to hold in your hand and the same goes for the S4. If you loved the S3's design then you will love the S4's design even more, trust me. The phone feels a little bit lighter and thinner which is great. It has a nice feel to it that makes you want to hold the phone.
-Camera: The primary camera on this phone is 13MP (4128 x 3096 pixels) and the front camera is 2MP that takes some of the best pictures I have ever seen. The front facing camera is great when you are Skyping or even taking pictures of yourself.
-Battery: Samsung has decided to improve the battery capacity in S4 to 2600mAh that can easily last a full day with a single charge. I can get through a day with a single charge and still have 30% left at the end of the day. The battery life is one of the most important aspects when deciding which phone to buy for me because I travel a lot and I need a phone that can last a full day. My previous phone which was the S3 needed at least 2-3 charges to last through a day. The Snapdragon 600 does an outstanding job at using as little battery as possible.
-Storage: With the option of an external sdcard, this phone simply destroys the iPhone 5. I can store as many pictures and HD videos as I want and it will never come close to being full. I am the type of person who stores large collections of pictures, videos, and movies and this phone lets me do all of that easily. I also play 3D games that require a minimum of 1-2GB of space and this phone is perfect for that.
-Processor: The Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 (Quad-core 1.9 GHz Krait 300) does an amazing job at keeping this phone lag free and blazing fast. I have never experienced a slow down with this phone. I have even tested this phone by playing intensive games such GTA Vice City on the highest settings and there were no slowdowns whatsoever. I am very impressed with the processor in this phone.
-Removable Battery: Who doesn't love this, seriously? This and the option of an external sdcard make this the best phone of the year. I always carry extra batteries whenever I travel somewhere and I can easily swap my battery with another one when the phone is low on battery. This is a big plus for this phone. Sucks to be an iPhone user!
Cons:
-None. As much as I want to think of something bad to say, there's simply nothing negative about this phone.
Overall, I can safely say that Samsung has another winner in their hands. It's a great phone and it doesn't disappoint. With the amazing 1080p resolution, screen size, battery capacity and storage, this phone puts other phones to shame. The Galaxy S4 will be the best phone of 2013, mark my words!
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