Gripenfelter
05-28-2013, 10:38 AM
So I've had this phone for about 5 days now and I have very mixed feelings about it. Previous to this I owned an iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 so my review is going to be based on my experience with Apple products. I played with my S4 phone and an iPhone 5 in store.
Construction: The iPhone 4 and 5 feel SOLID. Aluminum chassis and glass on the front and back make it feel very durable. You feel more confident handing it. The Samsung has a flimsy plastic backing held on with tabs and feels VERY fragile. I'm afraid to even put it in my pant pocket for fear that it would break. Taking the back cover off, the battery just falls out.
Screen:
The screen seems dull almost like it's a demo phone with a fake pic instead of a screen. But this is mostly because I'm spoiled by my iPhone 4's screen which is very high contrast and punchy. I should have uploaded the pic before I left but when you lay the iPhone 4 beside the S4 the screen of the iPhone just makes the S4 look dull. When you are watching videos or looking at pics they look more realistic on the S4 but looking at the same pics on the iPhone 4 makes you say "wow". The iPhone 5 is even better because there is no pixilation. The iPhone 4's resolution is noticeably lower than the iPhone 5 and S4. My kids much prefer the look of the iPhone 4 over the S4 because of its contrast.
Network and Browsing:
My iPhone 4 was on the 3G network which was painfully slow for me. Even loading pages on Wi-Fi was slow. The S4 by comparison is lightning fast but when compared to an iPhone 5 it seemed like the iPhone 5 was about 1/2 a second faster despite having a slower processor.
Special apps:
Siri on iPhone5 lags way behind the S4 here. The S-voice on the S4 is deadly accurate for voice/speech recognition. I can say "Text Sandra, I'm going to be a few minutes late because Titan ate the neighbour's dog and I'm waiting for him to poop him out" and it will get every word correct and it will text Sandra with that message. The iPhone5's Siri is good as well but seems like it can't do as much as the S4 can when it comes to voice control.
The S4 has face recognition which allows you to unlock your phone with your face, scroll up and down in web pages by tilting your head up or down, and pause video when you look away from the phone. None of these work reliably in anything but a brightly lit room and even then it's not very reliable. I'd rather leave these features turned off. The hand gesture thing where you wave your hand over the phone to answer or flip pages works again only in a brightly lit room and only if your hand goes directly over the sensor at the top of the phone at the right speed; another feature to leave off.
Video chat is very annoying. On my iPhone 4 I simply click CONTACTS, then click on the person's name I want to Facetime with, and then click FACETIME. It connects and works almost flawlessly as long as you have a good Wi-Fi signal. With the Samsung you have to download Hangouts or some other video chatting program first. My wife has an S4 as well so we tried Chat On and Hangouts (by Google). In order to video chat through Hangouts, which was the most recommended program for video chatting by users, you must first setup a Gmail account and make sure the other person has one as well. I tried 16 times in a row to video chat with my wife before it successfully connected. It kept giving me or my wife errors saying the other person didn't have Hangouts or wasn't available when we were sitting next to one another. We found what worked was DISABLING or DELETING your Hotmail email address from Hangouts and only leaving Gmail there. When you look at the people that are allowed to video chat with through Hangouts it only shows people from my Gmail whom I've ever emailed. NO ONE from my phone contact list which is the opposite of iPhone which allows you to facetime with any other iPhone user regardless of what generation phone he/she has.
Screen mirroring or displaying media from your phone to a smart TV is annoying, slow, buggy, and unpolished. It seems like Samsung just made this feature available because they figured out how to do it without really perfecting it. Apple on the other hand, in my opinion, only offers services like this when they can perfect them and make them bug free. Apple isn't perfect either though. The Apple maps thing is still atrocious.
When I want to save and email a pic from Facebook on the Samsung I must sync it to galleries first and then download it and then use another program to email it. If I want to rotate the pic first I must use a fourth program. With the iPhone 4 (again this is last generation's phone), I simply hold my finger on the pic, download it, then open it up in gallery, click edit, click rotate, click save, click email, done. All using 2 programs and it takes about half as much time on this 4 yr. old phone than the Samsung.
Navigation/GPS:
Samsung definitely has this in spades. GPS navigation/maps, and Google Now...very impressive. Apple isn't even in the game when it comes to these services. I'm really happy with Samsung for these. Works flawlessly and effortlessly.
Bloatware:
This Samsung Galaxy S4 is a 16 GB phone. Out of the 16 GB I have less than 9 GB for myself. So the system and bloatware take up 7 GB??? WTF?? On the iPhone 4 the system and bloatware take up maybe 3 GB. The 32 GB one isn't available yet. I have a 64 GB SD card on the S4 which is nice but on the 32 GB iPhone 4 I never felt a need for an SD card. Never ran out of space despite my kids taking THOUSANDS of pics with it.
So over the weekend I rooted the Samsung which was VERY easy. A lot less complicated than the iPhones. Took me all of 4 minutes as a newbie. mV1csPi8CeA&hl
I deleted all the Samsung and Rogers (my phone service provider) apps. Big mistake. It's too early on and there aren't any programs that work better than what Samsung or Rogers offers in regards to S-Voice, voicemail, and speech to text. I ended up loading a lot of them back in...ugh.
Battery life:
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has a 2600 mAh battery. My old iPhone 4 has a 1420 mAh battery. I'm a heavy cell phone user and by the end of the work day my iPhone 4 will still have 30-40% power. With BARELY using the Samsung S4 the battery was at 15% within 7 hrs. If I don't touch my iPhone 4, after 8 hrs. it shows 99% battery life. Now people will say, well turn off this and that. But why should I have to when I don't on the iPhone?? Forget about tethering or using it as a Wi-Fi hotspot or Bluetoothing. HUGE drain on the Samsung's battery. Bluetoothing or Wi-Fi hotspotting with the iPhone will leave me with 20-30% power at the end of the day (8 hrs.) while Samsung will be long dead before 5 hrs. are up. I've turned off all the Wi-Fi, sync, and other services on my Samsung while employing battery saving techniques and it still sucks way more juice than the iPhone 4 where I do nothing to save battery power.
Overall:
I like the customization aspect of the S4. I like the widgets, live wallpaper, and different home screens. I'm a big Google fan but I don't appreciate it being rammed down my throat. People bitch about iTunes but Google/Android isn't any better. I would even say they are WORSE. The reason I bought the S4 was because I think it has the perfect sized screen, and has lots of neat customization features. I still very much like the phone. I just wish it had a better battery, less bloatware, more storage space, and a more complete OS that handled everything for you so you didn't have to open and close multiple programs to do the same action on an iPhone. I really wish Apple had come out with a better phone to battle with the Samsung S4. The iPhone 5 wasn't really leaps and bounds ahead of the iPhone 4S in my opinion which is why I went to Android. Plus the bigger screen is much nicer on the Samsung. The iPhone 5's screen looks weird and videos playing on it have a strange border on the side because of the off ratio. I don't regret buying the Samsung. Just wish Apple had a better product. Maybe in 2-3 years.
One more thing I forgot to mention...
Samsung Kies Sync/Recovery tool for the PC. The Phone suggests you use Samsung Kies to download new firmware, backup your apps, etc.
WORST PROGRAM EVER.
Tried it some 10-12 times last night. NEVER WORKED ONCE at ANYTHING. Sometimes doesn't recognize the phone even though the PC does. I'm running Windows 7 with the correct drivers. PC always says my phone's name etc. Kies is clueless. Can't sync, can't see the phone, etc. When it does see the phone it crashes during back up.
GARBAGE.
I ended up using Odin. Click, click, done.
Construction: The iPhone 4 and 5 feel SOLID. Aluminum chassis and glass on the front and back make it feel very durable. You feel more confident handing it. The Samsung has a flimsy plastic backing held on with tabs and feels VERY fragile. I'm afraid to even put it in my pant pocket for fear that it would break. Taking the back cover off, the battery just falls out.
Screen:
The screen seems dull almost like it's a demo phone with a fake pic instead of a screen. But this is mostly because I'm spoiled by my iPhone 4's screen which is very high contrast and punchy. I should have uploaded the pic before I left but when you lay the iPhone 4 beside the S4 the screen of the iPhone just makes the S4 look dull. When you are watching videos or looking at pics they look more realistic on the S4 but looking at the same pics on the iPhone 4 makes you say "wow". The iPhone 5 is even better because there is no pixilation. The iPhone 4's resolution is noticeably lower than the iPhone 5 and S4. My kids much prefer the look of the iPhone 4 over the S4 because of its contrast.
Network and Browsing:
My iPhone 4 was on the 3G network which was painfully slow for me. Even loading pages on Wi-Fi was slow. The S4 by comparison is lightning fast but when compared to an iPhone 5 it seemed like the iPhone 5 was about 1/2 a second faster despite having a slower processor.
Special apps:
Siri on iPhone5 lags way behind the S4 here. The S-voice on the S4 is deadly accurate for voice/speech recognition. I can say "Text Sandra, I'm going to be a few minutes late because Titan ate the neighbour's dog and I'm waiting for him to poop him out" and it will get every word correct and it will text Sandra with that message. The iPhone5's Siri is good as well but seems like it can't do as much as the S4 can when it comes to voice control.
The S4 has face recognition which allows you to unlock your phone with your face, scroll up and down in web pages by tilting your head up or down, and pause video when you look away from the phone. None of these work reliably in anything but a brightly lit room and even then it's not very reliable. I'd rather leave these features turned off. The hand gesture thing where you wave your hand over the phone to answer or flip pages works again only in a brightly lit room and only if your hand goes directly over the sensor at the top of the phone at the right speed; another feature to leave off.
Video chat is very annoying. On my iPhone 4 I simply click CONTACTS, then click on the person's name I want to Facetime with, and then click FACETIME. It connects and works almost flawlessly as long as you have a good Wi-Fi signal. With the Samsung you have to download Hangouts or some other video chatting program first. My wife has an S4 as well so we tried Chat On and Hangouts (by Google). In order to video chat through Hangouts, which was the most recommended program for video chatting by users, you must first setup a Gmail account and make sure the other person has one as well. I tried 16 times in a row to video chat with my wife before it successfully connected. It kept giving me or my wife errors saying the other person didn't have Hangouts or wasn't available when we were sitting next to one another. We found what worked was DISABLING or DELETING your Hotmail email address from Hangouts and only leaving Gmail there. When you look at the people that are allowed to video chat with through Hangouts it only shows people from my Gmail whom I've ever emailed. NO ONE from my phone contact list which is the opposite of iPhone which allows you to facetime with any other iPhone user regardless of what generation phone he/she has.
Screen mirroring or displaying media from your phone to a smart TV is annoying, slow, buggy, and unpolished. It seems like Samsung just made this feature available because they figured out how to do it without really perfecting it. Apple on the other hand, in my opinion, only offers services like this when they can perfect them and make them bug free. Apple isn't perfect either though. The Apple maps thing is still atrocious.
When I want to save and email a pic from Facebook on the Samsung I must sync it to galleries first and then download it and then use another program to email it. If I want to rotate the pic first I must use a fourth program. With the iPhone 4 (again this is last generation's phone), I simply hold my finger on the pic, download it, then open it up in gallery, click edit, click rotate, click save, click email, done. All using 2 programs and it takes about half as much time on this 4 yr. old phone than the Samsung.
Navigation/GPS:
Samsung definitely has this in spades. GPS navigation/maps, and Google Now...very impressive. Apple isn't even in the game when it comes to these services. I'm really happy with Samsung for these. Works flawlessly and effortlessly.
Bloatware:
This Samsung Galaxy S4 is a 16 GB phone. Out of the 16 GB I have less than 9 GB for myself. So the system and bloatware take up 7 GB??? WTF?? On the iPhone 4 the system and bloatware take up maybe 3 GB. The 32 GB one isn't available yet. I have a 64 GB SD card on the S4 which is nice but on the 32 GB iPhone 4 I never felt a need for an SD card. Never ran out of space despite my kids taking THOUSANDS of pics with it.
So over the weekend I rooted the Samsung which was VERY easy. A lot less complicated than the iPhones. Took me all of 4 minutes as a newbie. mV1csPi8CeA&hl
I deleted all the Samsung and Rogers (my phone service provider) apps. Big mistake. It's too early on and there aren't any programs that work better than what Samsung or Rogers offers in regards to S-Voice, voicemail, and speech to text. I ended up loading a lot of them back in...ugh.
Battery life:
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has a 2600 mAh battery. My old iPhone 4 has a 1420 mAh battery. I'm a heavy cell phone user and by the end of the work day my iPhone 4 will still have 30-40% power. With BARELY using the Samsung S4 the battery was at 15% within 7 hrs. If I don't touch my iPhone 4, after 8 hrs. it shows 99% battery life. Now people will say, well turn off this and that. But why should I have to when I don't on the iPhone?? Forget about tethering or using it as a Wi-Fi hotspot or Bluetoothing. HUGE drain on the Samsung's battery. Bluetoothing or Wi-Fi hotspotting with the iPhone will leave me with 20-30% power at the end of the day (8 hrs.) while Samsung will be long dead before 5 hrs. are up. I've turned off all the Wi-Fi, sync, and other services on my Samsung while employing battery saving techniques and it still sucks way more juice than the iPhone 4 where I do nothing to save battery power.
Overall:
I like the customization aspect of the S4. I like the widgets, live wallpaper, and different home screens. I'm a big Google fan but I don't appreciate it being rammed down my throat. People bitch about iTunes but Google/Android isn't any better. I would even say they are WORSE. The reason I bought the S4 was because I think it has the perfect sized screen, and has lots of neat customization features. I still very much like the phone. I just wish it had a better battery, less bloatware, more storage space, and a more complete OS that handled everything for you so you didn't have to open and close multiple programs to do the same action on an iPhone. I really wish Apple had come out with a better phone to battle with the Samsung S4. The iPhone 5 wasn't really leaps and bounds ahead of the iPhone 4S in my opinion which is why I went to Android. Plus the bigger screen is much nicer on the Samsung. The iPhone 5's screen looks weird and videos playing on it have a strange border on the side because of the off ratio. I don't regret buying the Samsung. Just wish Apple had a better product. Maybe in 2-3 years.
One more thing I forgot to mention...
Samsung Kies Sync/Recovery tool for the PC. The Phone suggests you use Samsung Kies to download new firmware, backup your apps, etc.
WORST PROGRAM EVER.
Tried it some 10-12 times last night. NEVER WORKED ONCE at ANYTHING. Sometimes doesn't recognize the phone even though the PC does. I'm running Windows 7 with the correct drivers. PC always says my phone's name etc. Kies is clueless. Can't sync, can't see the phone, etc. When it does see the phone it crashes during back up.
GARBAGE.
I ended up using Odin. Click, click, done.