New Samsung Galaxy S4, Black 16GB (Verizon Wireless)
This is My Opinion About This Product
After I buy this New Samsung Galaxy S4, Black Mist 16GB (Verizon Wireless) (Wireless Phone)
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.
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.
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