My 2-cents on the new Samsung GALAXY S4 – Michael Aulia has already published his Samsung GALAXY S4 review some time ago here at Craving Tech but here is my personal opinion about the phone.
Hardware
Compared to Samsung GALAXY S3, Samsung GALAXY S4 has subtle-yet-significant design improvements. It has slightly (not completely) moved away from its previous curvature design by accentuating prominent edges at the front — made more apparent by the showcasing of aluminium sides.
Here are some pictures comparing Samsung GALAXY S3 4G (Black) with Samsung GALAXY S4 (White).
Although Samsung GALAXY S3 and Samsung GALAXY S4 have almost identical dimensions (136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm 133g VS 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm, 130g), Samsung GALAXY S4 features a larger 5″ display (compared to 4.8″ in GALAXY S3) which would give a greater feast for your eyes.
In terms of durability, I find the handset less susceptible to scratches or dents than when compared to, lets say, an iPhone. Having been using this phone for 2 weeks without any casing and screen protector, I am yet to see any marks despite being regularly put inside my bag alongside other items.
Software
Samsung GALAXY S4 also features a more streamlined, “fuller” keyboard display which includes numeric characters on its first layout (first made available in GALAXY Note 2), something that I find very useful and makes typing quicker.
Memory
Although as per specifications Samsung GALAXY S4 comes in 3 different memory capacity (16G, 32GB, 64GB), they barely mention this in their consumer publications.This might be part of their strategy to try to simplify consumer’s decision by only advertising the 16GB version across the board and thus making it more affordable
Battery Life
Battery life in Samsung GALAXY S4 has been bumped from 2100mAh in Samsung GALAXY S3 to 2600mAh. This is pretty much required to power a larger screen display. On the downside, the handset gets warm quite quickly. When you encounter this, I would personally suggest you to keep it away from your body parts (or even inside your pants pocket) to avoid experiencing undesirable burn-like sensation on your thigh (read: personal experience).
On my normal ‘heavy’ usage (with 4G turned on), the phone lasts a little bit longer than my current iPhone 5, so I can pretty much skip one charge cycle during the day and still be able to use it before charging it at night.
Accessories
As of time of writing, I could only see a few good quality cases for Samsung GALAXY S4. One that really strikes me is the original View Cover which brings out the Ned Kelly in Samsung GALAXY S4. It integrates with the back cover, giving an all-round change for the look and feel of your phone.
However, as in other flip cases, it still fails to address the hassle for when you want to take pictures since it distracts your hands when the cover is flapping around. Now, if only the View window could sit perfectly without covering the camera lens and the flash when you flip it to the back of the phone…
As of the other promised S Accessories, we might have to wait for a little while before we can get our hands on them. This includes the S Health Accessories range such as S Band, Heart Rate Monitor, and Body Scale. There are also talks about the Wireless Charger and Cover but this wasn’t being advertised during the Australian official launch, so we can only hope for its potential arrival.
