For the past month or so I've been using a Samsung Galaxy S 4 as my primary Android smartphone and my general impressions have been very positive. It has a large and clear screen, fast processor, good camera, and an overflowing number of applications. The big downside is that some of those apps just get in the way. They either seem unready or duplicative of the standard Android ones. But in practice, this really isn't a problem because I only run the ones that seem to add real value.
As I said when I first saw the device, Samsung is hoping to use this software as a way to differentiate the device. But still, in my actual day to day use, what comes up most is the standard Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) operating system and applications and of course, the hardware.
Yes, the hardware specs don't seem all that different from the top-end devices or other recent Android phones but they certainly seem to be at the top of the scale in almost all the categories.
The basic dimensions are 5.38-by-2.74-by-0.31 inches and it weighs 4.6 ounces. It's certainly bigger than an iPhone 5, but compared with most top-of-the-line Android phones (especially those with 5-inch displays), it's among the thinnest and lightest. In fact, it's almost exactly the same size as the older Galaxy S III, but with a larger display. A number of people have noted the "plastic-y" feel of the back of the device, but it doesn't bother me. Overall, I find it to be a pretty easy phone to carry.
The display is a 5-inch, 1920-by-1080 Super AMOLED, and as such it's the first full HD OLED display I've seen in a smartphone. It looks quite clear, and displays accurate colors. In the past, I've been skeptical of the PenTile arrangement of pixels, which uses different subpixels than traditional LCDs, but Samsung's improvement here are quite notable. The colors seem more accurate and I find the screen to be pretty readable even in bright sunlight, if a bit less bright than the top-end LCD displays. (For more details on the display, I recommend Ray Soneira's in-depth look.)
The processor, at least in the U.S. versions, is a 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. In daily use, it seems very fast at everything from opening webpages to running the camera and its myriad of choices to switching among apps.
Like all the other leading Android phones, the Galaxy S 4 runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Samsung has enhanced this with its TouchWiz 3.0 interface. Out of the box, I wasn't too impressed by all of the pre-installed widgets, such as the "Life Companion," but it was easy enough to change, leaving me with a few basic widgets like a time and weather one on the default home page, and some water-like animation effects. To me, the TouchWiz enhancements are mostly unremarkable; they work, but I don't think they add much.
The phone has a physical home button and electronic buttons on both sides to bring up the traditional Android menu and back buttons.
More importantly, there are a lot of little enhancements to the software. I like the sheer flexibility of the settings and the ease in which you can get to all the features. A simple swipe down brings up the notification panel, with controls for the most common features. A press of a button there brings up a layout that very quickly turns on and off all sorts of features, or goes to the more detailed settings page.
But to differentiate the phone Samsung adds a huge variety of options; unfortunately many of these just aren't that useful. A feature called "smart screen" includes "smart stay," which is supposed to keep the screen on as long as you are looking at it; smart scroll, which scrolls the screen according to the angle at which you tilt your head or the device; and smart pause, which pauses video when you turn away from the device. (Even though the last of these is featured in recent commercials, it defaults to turning this feature off.) Sometimes these features work; sometimes they don't. It may be very much dependent on the lighting around you, but I don't find myself relying on any of them.
Another such feature is Air View, which can give you more information on some content when you hover your finger over it in just the right way. It really didn't work for me.
On the other hand, some of the extra software is very useful. WatchOn has a guide to what's on TV right now with various recommendations. I didn't find this particularly useful, however it also works as a remote for multiple devices, such as a TV and a set-top box, and this worked quite well, even with non-Samsung equipment.
And I was impressed by S Health, which includes a walking mate to track how many steps you take, as well as the comfort level of your environment (based on the temperature and humidity) and options for tracking your food, and exercise leveI. I can't say I track all of this but do like the walking application. Even though it doesn't track as much as dedicated devices such as the Fitbit, it's easier when this is built into your phone, which is always with you. Over time, this should get better, and I'd like to see integration of this with a range of products.
The demos I've seen of S-Translate look good, but I just haven't been in a situation where I really need it lately, so I can't really judge.
Where it gets confusing is that a lot of the Samsung apps duplicate Google apps in the basic Android bundle. S Voice is voice recognition that does a reasonable job of answering questions but didn't seem as useful as Google Now. Similarly, Samsung Apps and Samsung Hub are essentially replacements for the Google Play store and while Samsung's offerings are fine, there's nothing really special about them.
The Galaxy S 4 has a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing one. Just as with the rest of the phone, Samsung is offering a huge number of features here. Some are very standard today, such as HDR, Night, and Panorama scenes. Others are more unusual, such as dual shot, which inserts a photo taken from the front-facing camera into one taken from the main camera, so you can put yourself in the photo. This is a cute idea but I'm not sure I'll use it much.
One of the more interesting modes is an eraser mode designed to remove an unwanted person who happens to be in a photo. This works pretty well but in practice you'll usually be using one of the other modes when you get "photobombed" so I didn't really find it all that that useful. Other modes let you create a photo with a few seconds of background noise; an animated photo; and Best Photo, which takes lots of photos and lets you choose your favorite. All of these are fine. Drama Shot lets you put multiple versions of a moving subject into a single photo, but that was hard to get right, and I didn't see much point in Beauty Face, which blurs photos a bit to give them more of a soft-focus image.
Of course, what really matters is the quality of the photos it takes. I've recently been testing a lot of phone cameras in different lighting situations (and I'll blog about that soon), and in general, the Galaxy S 4 and the iPhone 5 come out on top in the broadest range of pictures. The HDR and panorama modes work particularly well. Though I did notice a slight yellow tint in some pictures, overall, the Galaxy S 4 photos were as good as any I've seen on any smartphones. Videos are also good.
I used the Sprint version of the S 4 and as a result, mobile speed seemed great in the few spots where Sprint 4G worked, but spotty elsewhere. I generally found the phone and voice features to work well. Sprint does add a ridiculous number of apps, mostly stubs that download other tools I didn't generally want, such as yet another music store. The good news is that you can remove most of them.
And that's my one basic complaint about the S 4: it has so many features and so many distinct apps that you'll spend more time figuring out which ones you want and which ones you don't. After that you'll have to rearrange your screen and icons to fit. Once you do, though, you'll end up with a device that is fast, powerful, and easy to carry, perhaps the top choice among mainstream high-end phones. If you don't mind a bit of extra weight, I might hold out for the Galaxy S 4 Active, which is the same basic phone but in a more rugged case. If you want something a bit simpler, the HTC One is an obvious choice. You'll get fewer unique applications and a slightly smaller screen, but better audio and a more integrated feel. Or you could get a version of the S 4 with the Google Nexus software, though only directly from Google.
On the whole, the Galaxy S 4 is a terrific phonea bit overstuffed perhaps, but it works quite well.
For more, read PCMag's full review.
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