Samsung Galaxy S4: Review

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Samsung-Galaxy-S4

review Over the past several years, Korean manufacturer Samsung has evolved as Apple’s eternal rival. Constantly, in my extended family and friend base, I hear people comparing and contrasting these two brands and asking themselves which should win their smartphone budget. This year’s attempt from Samsung is the fourth model in its popular Galaxy line. We already know the GS4 is good. But does the Galaxy S4 do enough to be considered the best smartphone on the market? Read on to find out.

Design
If you’ve played with Samsung’s previous Galaxy S III model (see Delimiter’s review here), then you’ll already be largely familiar with the overall design of the S4. You get the same large screen, the same rounded rectangle button beneath that screen, similar on/off controls on each side of the screen, and the same metallic rim with a smooth, grippy, shiny plastic casing. You get the same 3.5mm headphone jack on top and the same microUSB port beneath. As with the S III, the back cover of the S4 is removable, giving access to its SD card slot, battery and SIM card. It’s all pretty similar.

However, as with Apple’s iPhone 5 handset compared with the previous iPhone 4S model, the more you use the S4, the more you realise how different this model is to its predecessor, in subtle but powerful ways.

The first is the size and quality of the screen. The S III’s screen was quite large at 4.8″, and it featured a solid screen resolution at 1280×720, delivering a pixel density of 306PPI. The S4, in comparison, has a slightly larger screen at 5″, but it really amps up the resolution to 1920×1080 (or ‘Full HD’ in Samsung speak), as well as the pixel density to 441 PPI. What this means is that you will probably feel that the S4 is very similar to the SIII, until you switch on its screen, and that brilliant, large screen with its incredible clarity starts to dominate everything around it.

There are also other elements to the S4’s physical design which are a little different than that of the S III. The S4 is ever so slightly lighter (130 compared with 133g), and it’s ever so slightly thinner (7.6mm compared with 8.6mm). Given that the S4’s length and width are basically the same (but that it has a larger screen), what this all adds up to is a subtle but powerful refining of the S III, placing a greater focus on its screen and refining its construction.

I’ve heard some other reviewers bemoan the physical casing of the S4, which you can get in either a whitish light shade or a darkish black shade. Quite a few people, apparently, prefer the metallic finish found on the HTC One and the iPhone 5, compared with the S4’s plastic material. And there is some validity to this complaint, if you prefer things that way.

However, personally, I felt that the S4’s finish represented surpassing build quality, and I had absolutely no problem with it. This is one smartphone which felt lovely in the hand and very grippy, which can be a problem with both the One and the iPhone 5 (they tend to slip a little in the hand). You’re not going to easily drop the S4. The lighter plastic material of the S4 may also have contributed to its weight, compared with the One. The HTC model is a full 13g heavier, and we preferred the feeling of the S4 in our pocket.

One design aspect which we would like to see go away soon is Samsung’s insistence on maintaining a physical hardware button below the S4’s screen, along with one capacitive button on either side. These work fine, but your writer owns a Nexus 4, and we have to say that the on-screen buttons found on that device feel better and make more sense than physical buttons, even capacitive ones. Physical buttons are so 2010.

Overall the design and build quality of the S4 is superb. We are sure you won’t be able to find fault with it (unless, perhaps, you have small hands).

Features
When it comes to features, the S4 really is generally unsurpassed by its rivals; although it also suffers a little from bloat. There’s a lot crammed in here; and sometimes the sides bulge a little.

At the heart of the S4 is a powerful 1.9GHz quad-core CPU (Snapdraon 600 model). This is not, it should be noted, the CPU which ships in the S4 available in some other countries, which features eight cores. CNET’s got a better detailed evaluation of this situation, but what it boils down to is that Australia’s 4G/LTE frequency (generally 1800MHz) requires a different chipset to some other countries.

However, four cores at 1.9GHz are more than enough to make the S4 one of the most powerful smartphones on the market, and we had no problems with the unit’s speed in the tests we ran.

You get 2GB of RAM included, and either 16GB or 32GB of on-board storage space, plus an SD card which can take up to 64GB. The SD card slot is, however, located behind the back cover, which makes it a little annoying to remove if you have to do so often. The S4’s screen is a 5″ Super AMOLED model running at 1920×1080 for a pixel density rating of 441 PPI, which is amongst the best on the market (for comparison, the iPhone 5 does 326 PPI, with other recent Android releases such as the HTC One and Sony Xperia Z at or a little higher than the S4).

The main camera is a 13 megapixel model, while the front model is a 2 megapixel model. Both of these specifications place the S4 out in front of most other smartphones on the market. The S4 comes with Bluetooth 4.0, an NFC chip for mobile payments, and all the normal sensors such as an accelerometer, a gyrometer and so on. In addition, it supports the normal Wi-Fi standards as well as (theoretically) 802.11ac, a new standard which has not yet gained popularity. It also comes with 4G support on the networks of Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.

Then we get to the rest.

The S4 comes with an absolute plethora of software features which, very simply, dwarf the featureset of other smartphones currently on the market. It would be too much to go into all of them here, but let’s go through a few of the more high-profile ones.

Some of these features relate to the way you use the S4’s camera. For example, a Dual Camera function allows you to take photos with both the front and back cameras simultaneously. A Dual Video Call function allows you to make and receive video calls, while showing what you are looking at during the call. The camera software comes with a large number of shooting modes (for example, one that also stores sound), as well as editing functionality.

One of the more eye-catching features of the S4 is how it detects the user’s motions around it. For example, a feature named Smart Pause automatically pauses videos when you look away from the screen. A Smart Scroll feature tracks your face and scrolls the screen up or down (for example, when reading an email) when you need it.

A feature named Air View allows users to preview content such as a calendar entry or email by hovering their fingers over the screen but not actually touching it, while another feature named Air Gesture opens up a range of options such as accepting a phone call, changing the music track playing, or scrolling up or down a web page by literally passing your hand over the screen.

And there’s still more. The S4 can act as your TV’s remote control and also output the content of its screen to a TV, you can play the same song on multiple phones in sync, you can translate text when travelling, and so on. The list of the S4’s ‘special’ features seems endless, and this isn’t even getting into specialised Samsung apps bundled on the device such as S Health, which tracks your health in order to deliver a better quality of life.

Do all of these features work? We’ll get onto this in a second in the ‘performance’ section of this article. But what we can say here is that when combined, they contribute to the impression that the S4 is simply un-matched in its featureset by any other smartphone on the market. When using the device, we were routinely interrupted by friends and family who would ask us how we had done something, and opening the S4 presents the user with a dazzling array of options, the like we haven’t seen elsewhere on the market.

Tying all of this together is the S4’s implementation of Android. The model comes with the latest 4.2.2 (‘Jelly Bean’) version of the Google operating system, but also implements Samsung’s TouchWiz interface.

TouchWiz is not as intrusive as the Sense UI found on HTC’s One smartphone, and at least in the version found on the S4, feels a lot more like the stock Android experience that many people, including the writer of this article, prefer. In addition, the default theme used by Samsung with the S4 is quite beautiful to look at and use. However, don’t be fooled: This isn’t stock Android, and there are many, many customisations here which Android purists will hate. The settings section is particularly convoluted, and you’ll need to hunt around to find relevant options if you’re coming from a stock Android device like the Nexus 4.

What all of this adds up to in terms of the S4’s featureset is something pretty incredible. Not only are the S4’s base features top of the market, but they are also well-integrated. However, the sheer number of the features found in the S4 also contributes to a sense of complexity and clutter in the device. You’ll need to invest significant time in learning how to use them all, and not all are well-implemented. What your writer ended up doing is keeping the ones we found useful and turning off the ones we didn’t — which Samsung has thankfully provided settings options to do.

You won’t find a smartphone with better features on the market at the moment than the Galaxy S4. This thing is packed to the gills with goodness.

Performance
There’s a lot to go into here, and it wouldn’t be feasible to provide a detailed overview of all of the GS4’s features from a performance perspective. So for the purposes of this review, I’ll focus on a few key areas: Camera, battery life, user experience, and “the rest”.

From a camera perspective, the S4’s performance was great. The shots we took by and large were amongst the best we’ve taken with a smartphone, and we’d rank the S4’s camera easily up with top of the line models such as the iPhone 5, the HTC One and even the model found on Lumia’s flagship 920. The only thing you’re missing out on here through not having the One’s ‘Ultrapixels’ is that you won’t get quite as good shots under low lighting conditions. But we don’t really mind. In addition, the extra software features found with the S4 really push the whole smartphone camera market forward, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see some of these make their way into Android or iOS as standard.

The following shots were taken at the same time and place with the listed devices. No modifications were made — they were merely resized in Photoshop and saved as moderate quality JPGs. Click for a bigger view of each image.

iPhone 5:

iphone5-small

Samsung Galaxy S4:

samsung-gs4-small

HTC One:

htc-one-small

In terms of its battery life, the S4 is one of the first 4G high-end smartphones we’ve seen in Australia that has quite solid endurance. It’s got a slightly larger battery than the HTC One (2,600 mAh compared with the 2300 mAh model found on the One), and in general we found the S4 outlasted pretty much all of the other 4G models we’ve tested recently, despite the fact that it has a huge screen, a powerful CPU and a stack of features.

Perhaps the best way to describe the S4’s battery performance is that it’s getting back to ‘normal’ in terms of 3G smartphone battery life. Most 4G phones we’ve tested last through one day but little more — ideally you’d need to recharge them every night. The S4 reminded us a lot more of a high-end 3G model like the Nexus 4, in that we could usually just charge it a couple of times a week but not really pay a lot of attention to the battery for a few days until it started beeping at you. This, to be honest, is great. We’re tired of 4G battery suckers, and it’s good to see Samsung innovating in this space.

In terms of the S4’s user interface, there’s good news and bad news in terms of its performance. The good news is that everything works and is relatively consistent internally. Once you’ve learned the quirks of where things are and how things transition in Touchwiz on the S4, you’ll find the whole thing pretty natural. This is a better Android experience than we’ve seen from any other Android manufacturer recently — less clutter, less confusion and more user choice — apart from the default Android experience found on the Nexus 4.

Plus, the skin/theme on the S4 is beautiful; and we found others on different tables at a pub, for example, looking our way to check out the S4’s screen. This smartphone is an eye-catcher. Its screen is large, vibrant, beautiful, and grabs attention.

However, it’s still way more confusing than stock Android, and there’s a lot of clutter in the S4 UI due to the extreme number of features and extra apps which Samsung has packed in here. One particular aspect to this is that the quick settings menu (accessed by pulling down the top of the screen) is incredibly cluttered — and not ‘quick’ at all to navigate. Occasionally we got lost trying to find a basic setting.

The good news, of course, is that Samsung is bringing out a version of the S4 with the stock ‘Nexus’ Android experience. We view this as likely being a better model than the S4 currently on sale in Australia, as long as the model arriving locally supports 4G, and probably close to the perfect smartphone that we could imagine. Samsung’s power and featureset combined with Google’s clear and simple UI? Heaven.

Lastly, there’s the ‘extra’ Samsung features here — features such as Smart Pause (which pauses videos when you look away) or Air Gesture (which lets you swipe your hand over the screen, without touching it, to issue a command to the phone.

These features, which by and large are not found on any other smartphone currently available, are a mixed bag. Some, such as Air Gesture, are just fricking awesome. It’s great to be able to swipe your hand in the air to change music tracks or even answer the phone, and we found ourselves using it often and reliably. The same can be said of the Smart Pause feature. It is no exaggeration to say that rival companies such as Apple will be examining these options closely to see how they can similarly be integrated into their own products.

It all does sound quite gimmicky when you read the marketing material. However, in practice, our friends and family were amazed when we demonstrated how looking up from a YouTube video with the S4 would automatically pause it, or how we could swap back to the previous web page we were browsing by swiping our hand over the screen. In real life, these features are game changers for the S4, and as they get refined, we expect them to become a fundamental part of using a smartphone.

Other features, however, came across as raw and undeveloped. Air View (the contactless preview function) can be a bit hit and miss, and of course the TV integration isn’t perfect yet. The same with the automatic scroll function. And even some of the camera features on the S4 came across as gimmicky or ‘beta’ rather than functional and finished.

If these features had been developed by Apple, you know they wouldn’t have all made it into a finished product for sale. Apple, with its strict quality controls, would have ensured they came to their final, polished, developed form, before launching them. At times the S4 comes across as an experimental sandbox, because Samsung has just thrown all the options in there, without polish at times.

However, it says a lot about Samsung at the moment that it’s quite literally the only manufacturer on the market right now which is innovating in these areas, or at least the only one which has brought these kinds of features to market. The S4 does some quite amazing things which other smartphones — especially the iPhone, with its increasingly clunky iOS interface and relatively static featureset — just aren’t even attempting to do. And some really work. Because of this, we really have to praise Samsung for its innovation here.

Look, we can’t possibly go into all of the performance which a massively specc’d smartphone like the S4 delivers. However, in conclusion: It’s hard to find fault with the S4’s performance on any measure. The S4 does all the fundamentals really well and most of its additional features perform well. It comes across as a bit cluttered and over-featured at times, and will no doubt be improved by the ‘Nexus’ stock Android experience. But it’s hard to fault the S4’s overall performance.

Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

In mid-2013, the best high-end smartphone available in Australia is clearly the Samsung Galaxy S4. It delivers well on all of its fundamentals, features top-class build quality, and not only delivers a top of the market featureset, but also many useful and innovative features which no other smartphone currently offers. We suspect the S4 will be vastly improved by the addition of Google’s ‘Nexus’ stock Android experience, but even so, this is the king pin. The iPhone 5, the HTC One and even the Lumia 920 are great smartphones.

But we have to say: The Samsung GS4 has them all beat. This is the gold standard right now and we commend it to you.

Other reviews of the Galaxy S4 which we liked: The Verge, Engadget, CNET, PCWorld Australia.

Image credit: Samsung

14 COMMENTS

  1. Hmmn, maybe it is just me, but you didn’t really seem to have your heart in this review. You seem to be trying to rate this phone higher than it is. You mention several negative things about it but still state it is the clear winner.

    • It’s kind of like this:

      If you look at the Nexus 4 or the iPhone 5, they’re a cohesive unit as a product. Software is unified with hardware, there’s no extraneous features. They’re elegant, zen-like smartphones which go beyond obscuring complexity to truly understanding and simplifying complexity.

      When it comes to the S4, it exceeds these models on every count, and has so many extra features and so much extra performance, that you can’t help but acknowledge it as the winner – it’s massive overkill. But that zen-like simplicity which makes me love a product isn’t there.

      The S4 is the best smartphone available on the market today. I acknowledge that. But it’s not the best phone for me personally. Because I particularly like that zen-like sense of simplicity.

      Does that make sense? :)

      It will get more of that sense of zen simplicity when they launch the ‘Nexus’ S4 model.

      • :) I’m not sure that it does make sense. I would have thought that you could really only compare the S4 to the One since most of the other phones out there don’t have as good as specs, eg, the hi res screens and fast processors (although I don’t know much about the Sony). But you didn’t really mention much about the One at all. For example, the One has a few features that really appeal to some people like the better low light camera, the front facing speakers, the excellent metal body but it lacks the removable battery, SD card and latest Android version. If you had of brought these things up it would have made much more sense since these different qualities appeal to different users. You could of then made a personal choice. I

        n reference to the Nexus 4, I hardly think you can bring that up since it isn’t spec’ed up enough to compare and it is a bit old now.

  2. I happen to have a Samsung Galaxy S4 here too (probably for the same reason you do!) and I haven’t read this article to far in, but I saw this “Overall the design and build quality of the S4 is superb.” and just had to come here and post that I think the S4 is a hunk of junk vs. the Nexus 4 (which I also have) and god awful vs the HTC One and iPhone 5. The S4 feels like a cheap knockoff, or a bargain basement phone, with that tuna can like back peel and the weird bump on the back for the speaker which feels like a crumb stuck to the plastic.

    So whilst you may think that the S4 has fantastic build quality Renai, I couldn’t think of a flagship smartphone on the market today with *worse* build quality than Samsungs. Flimsy and cheap and not even that light to justify the material use.

    • “probably for the same reason you do”

      ?

      I had a review unit for a few weeks and sent it back as normal.

      As far as the build quality goes, I read a few reviews on this, and there’s quite a split out there between reviewers who like the plasticky feel and believe it’s very good quality, and those who think it’s poor quality and cheap. It seems like it’s a matter of personal taste, which is actually a rare thing for regular reviewers. However, it’s good that both the HTC One and the S4 are getting the ‘Nexus’ treatment. This means everyone can have what they prefer :)

      I agree the Nexus 4 has excellent build quality. That’s why I bought one :) I use it interchangeably with the iPhone 5 as my main personal phone.

    • Honestly, I’d disagree on both the weight and build quality counts.

      While it’s not made of metal and glass for a ‘premium feel’, I’d honestly rather know its built of plastic. It seems strange, but my S4, Lumia 920 and Other Galaxy series handsets I’ve used have been excellent in plastic.

      Where the Lumia wins as a ‘plastic’ phone is that its both durable and strong but unfortunately far too heavy for a big user. Its a bit of a brick. That said, the One is the biggest brick of them all. It may look good and feel great in the hand, but given i’m a big user of the phone rather than a texter, light > premium materials any day of the bloody week. The One is heavy and its noticeable.

      As for software, I like the S4’s adjustments – but I think since using Windows Phone since November, I’ve been quite spoilt. The lumia is better than the s4 for texting, emailing and quite a few other things. The One? I cant text or email on it. It doesnt feel like its accurate at all when hitting keys plus autocorrect is woefully accurate at best (still compared to the Lumia or an iPhone), it feels cluttered with an overdose of Sense applications and the general battery life is … reasonable but not stellar.

      Personally, I’d go back to the Lumia as soon as a new one arrives; I think I’ll get off the android bandwagon. But If I have to choose between an S4 and a HTC One? S4’s still a better all round fit.

      • I don’t get too concerned about things like the keyboard and email as you can just install Google keyboard or Swiftkey and Gmail and you are fine. I’ve played with a friends S4 and it seems sluggish with the scrolling. No doubt they will probably fix it with an update.

  3. How big will these screens get?

    A few ppl here in the office (and myself) were lured from iphones to a couple of the Android specimens (both HTC and Samsung were tried) and most of us have moved back to the iphone 5.

    I asked around the office for reasons and the most overwhelming response was:
    -The bigger screens look enticing, but they don’t sit well in a suit pocket, and it is very hard to use single handed when standing on a crowded train or bus.

    • Like everything, it is all about choice and it is obvious that there is a big market for bigger screens hence the popularity of large screens on Android devices. A lot of women carry their phone in their handbag and thus a bigger phone is better for them. Also, people are using their phones more and more as computers and social network browsers and so having to use them one handed is not a requirement. I think that it will become more and more common for phones to come in a small, medium and large size.

      You do make a good point though in that some users who have to stand on public transport require easy one handed use and thus the iPhone is excellent for that.

      • I will note, however, that even the iPhone 5 screen size is a little big for one-handed use at the top of the screen. Apple really nailed the one-handed scenario with the original 3.5″ screen size for the models before the iPhone 5. However, I guess things have moved on a little now — many people use two hands most of the time, etc. The 5″ screen sizes of the new superphones are definitely too large to easily use in one hand.

  4. The thing that gets me about these phones is the build quality. I’m sorry, I can’t agree on a few points, but you’ve nailed the “zen like” nature of iPhone. Particularly the 5.

    It’s not the best phone now, sure, it’s been out for a while and Samsung has taken great joy in apeing a few design queues. But it is a nice phone, has a great screen. I’ve held one and then my existing 5 and it’s.. nope.

    If the build quality was there, and maybe the app base a but better, I’d be sold, I really would. But it just feels cheap. I would be terrified of dropping and have it explode; my prior iphones are like tanks and whilst I have no interest in dropping and tossing around for fun, it’s that solid construction and form factor that work for me.

    I also struggled a bit with the size of the display – huge is great, but only if it’s comfortable to use and the current size war between android handsets to see who can cram the biggest display in is hilarious up until you try and man-handle the things with one hand. It can be awkward.

    And it’s stuff like that, not just raw specs that matter to an idiot like me. I couldn’t really care less if I had something powered by Apple or Google. It’s the build and usage that i’ll fall back to – and whilst Samsung get close.. they can’t help trying to outdo everyone and sort of fail in the process.

    It’s an awesome handset. I just can’t fall for it.

    • I’m really surprised that you said this, “… my prior iPhones are like tanks and whilst I have no interest in dropping and tossing around for fun, it’s that solid construction and form factor that work for me.”

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t some of the iPhones have a glass back as well? I’ve never seen more broken phones then iPhones – that is where either the front or back is broken after it has been dropped. I can’t fathom have a designer would put a glass back on a device that is prone to dropping.

      • The 4s and 4 were glass, both sides. They bounced. Samsungs (certainly in the past) explode or suffer catastrophic cracking.

        Sure, I’d use a case (in either case) but there’s a distinct difference in build quality. And I’ve not actually seen too many destroyed iPhones, including the all glass jobs.

        The 5’s are an all-metal back, anyway.

        Quite a few people I know have gone through smashed android handsets, though.

        My point stands; Samsung are starting to produce some nice handsets, but by using cheap construction all the effort is a bit pointless.

  5. Good article, I’d disagree with you on the build quality of the S4, but I did laugh at this:
    ‘If these features had been developed by Apple, you know they wouldn’t have all made it into a finished product for sale. Apple, with its strict quality controls, would have ensured they came to their final, polished, developed form, before launching them.’
    What, like Apple maps and siri?!!!

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