So I've now owned the S4 for about 3 weeks. (Came from 2 Nexus phones, a Nexus S and then a Gnex). I'm really enjoying it, it's a change of gears from a pure google phone experience but for me, it's just that, a little bit different, some things better, some things I miss. Anyway, I digress.
I am certainly appreciating the 5" of screen real estate and in order to accomplish that in an almost similar size of the S3 they reduced the amount of bezel. This brings me to the one annoyance of it's design. The small amount of space left at the bottom for the buttons. I tend to operate my phones one-handed using my thumb to navigate the screen and use the buttons. I don't consider myself to have overly large hands but man there are times when I go to hit menu or back with my thumb and end up hitting something on screen instead. I just put an otterbox commuter on my phone and with the protective lip it accentuates this issue.
While having offscreen buttons is nice for that little bit extra of screen given to browsing the web and whatnot, it does make me sometimes miss the onscreen buttons such that my gnex had. They were certainly easier to hit.
Anyway, it's something I'm going to live and I'll have to find ways to adjust. But I can tell from the past 3 weeks that it'll be the one annoyance I'll have with the phones design.
I am certainly appreciating the 5" of screen real estate and in order to accomplish that in an almost similar size of the S3 they reduced the amount of bezel. This brings me to the one annoyance of it's design. The small amount of space left at the bottom for the buttons. I tend to operate my phones one-handed using my thumb to navigate the screen and use the buttons. I don't consider myself to have overly large hands but man there are times when I go to hit menu or back with my thumb and end up hitting something on screen instead. I just put an otterbox commuter on my phone and with the protective lip it accentuates this issue.
While having offscreen buttons is nice for that little bit extra of screen given to browsing the web and whatnot, it does make me sometimes miss the onscreen buttons such that my gnex had. They were certainly easier to hit.
Anyway, it's something I'm going to live and I'll have to find ways to adjust. But I can tell from the past 3 weeks that it'll be the one annoyance I'll have with the phones design.