My take on this "lag" issue

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Let me preface this by saying that I do not pay for most of the phones I use. Testing and learning them is part of my job, and the hardware is a tool to do it with -- much like a mechanic needs wrenches. I've had a black Sprint S4 here for a bit, and have been observing and thinking about what I'm seeing.

Here's the most interesting part about what we're (Phil, Alex and myself) seeing about the lag. The Sprint version seems to be (much) more affected than the AT&T/Rogers version and the Euro version (S600). We have not tried the Exynos version. All I can think of here is something Sprint has pre-loaded may be contributing to the issue. That's not very scientific, but nothing sticks out to explain this.

Having said that, let me tell you that most of these "issues" about the lag are a bit overblown. Other than a gallery bug (more later) none are show-stoppingly bad. With the tweaks found in this forum and others (animations, shutting off services and S voice, etc) I see the following:

The lock screen lags if you're using any of the effects. The Ripple effect is the worst. Choose none.
Incoming notifications make the phone stall for a split second a fraction of a split second.
Opening apps sometimes will have a stutter. I've seen no pattern here, which makes me think this is dependent of either free RAM or CPU load.
Weather widget sometimes redraws when going back "home".
The Gallery is FUBAR

Other than the Gallery, none of these is nearly as bad as people make it out to be, especially if you've done any of the "fixes". Without turning off some of the features, yes it can be a bit frustrating on occasion, but there is nothing here that a bit of software tweaking won't fix. Samsung wants to sell a billion of these, and I expect some sort of update soonish to get people in love with the S4 again.

Now, the gallery. It's slow. It locks up. It freezes. It has caused a full reboot more than once. Not every time, but it's never a speedy experience. Especially if you've tied uploads to your Dropbox account to the camera photos. This will start out OK, but as you add items to the gallery it gets steadily worse. Samsung needs to fix the Gallery app. I'm sure they will. Alex says if you have enabled camera uploads in Dropbox, you'll need to factory reset to fix it. I've factory reset numerous times to see how apps affect the lag overall, so I have to believe him (as my gallery is better after a reset). I'm almost feeling there is an issue with the media scanner at play versus the code for the gallery app itself. Just a guess.

Now, since I didn't get in on the review for this one, my impressions of the best selling phone of the year (yes, it will be).

It's plastic. Lots of things are plastic. This is shiny and slick plastic, which looks and feels different from soft-touch plastic. If Samsung had just used a soft touch coating none of this crap would be an issue. They didn't. The phone isn't going to break because it's plastic, nor does it feel bad (or slimy like some folks mentioned). In fact, it feels very ergonomic and solidly built. It feels as good to hold as the HTC One does, at least to me.

The screen. I <3 Super AMOLED's colors and blacks. Yes, it's fake color but I don't care when I'm watching a movie. Having said that, the screen on the One or the iPhone 5 is clearer and slightly sharper. So what? The screen on the S4 is really nice, and with my glasses off holding it 2 inches from my eyes, I'm not hating pentile like I did with the G Nex or even the S3. If every phone came with a screen this good we'd be lucky.

The storage. 9GB. That's enough for me. It might not be enough for you. It's not gonna change, and if you want everything but the kitchen sink included you have to have somewhere to put it all. Know in advance that you get about 9GB free on the 16GB version, and deal with it your own way. Wait for the 32 or 64, get a One, switch back to the iPhone, whatever you need to do. Just do it

The features. Half of them don't work as advertised. But when they are shut off they are out of my way. I do wish the translate app worked a bit better, and that Samsung would just abandon S Voice altogether

I would choose the HTC One, because I like the camera features and front facing speakers. I also need to hate on the SD card and menu button, which I think is holding back the whole platform. But you might not think that way. It's cool. Diff'rent strokes and all.

Hopefully, this helps someone who hasn't had a chance to see the S4 for themselves sort through all the online garbage about lag, and plastic, and gimmicks, and 9GB.

 

[smooth4lyfe]

To be fair, each experience is different
In terms of lagging, I have yet to experience lag in my Gallery
The only time I experience some major lag is when I unlock sometimes (I have the halo effect). Other than that, its like .2 second lagging or none for me

The S-Translate for me works pretty good as well as the Optical reader (not sure if this is in the U.S. version), which I am starting to find a bit useful
Which features for you did not work as advertised?...the only one that didn't really work too well for me was Smart Scroll, which I have off anyways

My major complaint about the phone is the battery (atleast for me) doesn't last as long as I hope, but it's probably because I have some features on

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

To be fair, each experience is different
In terms of lagging, I have yet to experience lag in my Gallery
The only time I experience some major lag is when I unlock sometimes (I have the halo effect). Other than that, its like .2 second lagging or none for me

The S-Translate for me works pretty good as well as the Optical reader (not sure if this is in the U.S. version), which I am starting to find a bit useful
Which features for you did not work as advertised?...the only one that didn't really work too well for me was Smart Scroll, which I have off anyways

My major complaint about the phone is the battery (atleast for me) doesn't last as long as I hope, but it's probably because I have some features on

You're the second person who told me the Exynos version doesn't have gallery lag. We're seeing it on three different phones, unfortunately.

The smart stay and smart scroll can't see my eyes with my glasses on. I knew this coming in, as the Note 2, Note 8, and S3 couldn't either. Hover works pretty well. The Air Gestures seem hit or miss, and I wish the translate could keep up with a native German speaker without them having to go slow. German might be a hard language for speech input, lots of gutteral sounds and odd vowel sounds. I've no complaints about the battery, it's about the same as any other high-end phone for me.

 

[truthteller10]

Im sorry my friend but I must say that at this point even one of the above issues are completely unacceptable. I mean come on this phone has the most powerful processor ever created for a phone matched with a company that has made billions. There should be absolutely no software issues like this when Samsung has tons of resources to gear towards making every user's experience a pleasant one. I've owned the Gs2, Gs3 and now the Note 2 and each has the same issues that fail to get fixed. These lag issues that you speak of are nothing new and are about 3 years old. Samsung is too focused on BS gimmicks than make the phone a smooth lag free experience.

Let me preface this by saying that I do not pay for most of the phones I use. Testing and learning them is part of my job, and the hardware is a tool to do it with -- much like a mechanic needs wrenches. I've had a black Sprint S4 here for a bit, and have been observing and thinking about what I'm seeing.

Here's the most interesting part about what we're (Phil, Alex and myself) seeing about the lag. The Sprint version seems to be (much) more affected than the AT&T/Rogers version and the Euro version (S600). We have not tried the Exynos version. All I can think of here is something Sprint has pre-loaded may be contributing to the issue. That's not very scientific, but nothing sticks out to explain this.

Having said that, let me tell you that most of these "issues" about the lag are a bit overblown. Other than a gallery bug (more later) none are show-stoppingly bad. With the tweaks found in this forum and others (animations, shutting off services and S voice, etc) I see the following:

The lock screen lags if you're using any of the effects. The Ripple effect is the worst. Choose none.
Incoming notifications make the phone stall for a split second a fraction of a split second.
Opening apps sometimes will have a stutter. I've seen no pattern here, which makes me think this is dependent of either free RAM or CPU load.
Weather widget sometimes redraws when going back "home".
The Gallery is FUBAR

Other than the Gallery, none of these is nearly as bad as people make it out to be, especially if you've done any of the "fixes". Without turning off some of the features, yes it can be a bit frustrating on occasion, but there is nothing here that a bit of software tweaking won't fix. Samsung wants to sell a billion of these, and I expect some sort of update soonish to get people in love with the S4 again.

Now, the gallery. It's slow. It locks up. It freezes. It has caused a full reboot more than once. Not every time, but it's never a speedy experience. Especially if you've tied uploads to your Dropbox account to the camera photos. This will start out OK, but as you add items to the gallery it gets steadily worse. Samsung needs to fix the Gallery app. I'm sure they will. Alex says if you have enabled camera uploads in Dropbox, you'll need to factory reset to fix it. I've factory reset numerous times to see how apps affect the lag overall, so I have to believe him (as my gallery is better after a reset). I'm almost feeling there is an issue with the media scanner at play versus the code for the gallery app itself. Just a guess.

Now, since I didn't get in on the review for this one, my impressions of the best selling phone of the year (yes, it will be).

It's plastic. Lots of things are plastic. This is shiny and slick plastic, which looks and feels different from soft-touch plastic. If Samsung had just used a soft touch coating none of this crap would be an issue. They didn't. The phone isn't going to break because it's plastic, nor does it feel bad (or slimy like some folks mentioned). In fact, it feels very ergonomic and solidly built. It feels as good to hold as the HTC One does, at least to me.

The screen. I <3 Super AMOLED's colors and blacks. Yes, it's fake color but I don't care when I'm watching a movie. Having said that, the screen on the One or the iPhone 5 is clearer and slightly sharper. So what? The screen on the S4 is really nice, and with my glasses off holding it 2 inches from my eyes, I'm not hating pentile like I did with the G Nex or even the S3. If every phone came with a screen this good we'd be lucky.

The storage. 9GB. That's enough for me. It might not be enough for you. It's not gonna change, and if you want everything but the kitchen sink included you have to have somewhere to put it all. Know in advance that you get about 9GB free on the 16GB version, and deal with it your own way. Wait for the 32 or 64, get a One, switch back to the iPhone, whatever you need to do. Just do it

The features. Half of them don't work as advertised. But when they are shut off they are out of my way. I do wish the translate app worked a bit better, and that Samsung would just abandon S Voice altogether

I would choose the HTC One, because I like the camera features and front facing speakers. I also need to hate on the SD card and menu button, which I think is holding back the whole platform. But you might not think that way. It's cool. Diff'rent strokes and all.

Hopefully, this helps someone who hasn't had a chance to see the S4 for themselves sort through all the online garbage about lag, and plastic, and gimmicks, and 9GB.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Im sorry my friend but I must say that at this point even one of the above issues are completely unacceptable. I mean come on this phone has the most powerful processor ever created for a phone matched with a company that has made billions. There should be absolutely no software issues like this when Samsung has tons of resources to gear towards making every user's experience a pleasant one. I've owned the Gs2, Gs3 and now the Note 2 and each has the same issues that fail to get fixed. These lag issues that you speak of are nothing new and are about 3 years old. Samsung is too focused on BS gimmicks than make the phone a smooth lag free experience.

And that's completely up to you to decide. Samsung needs to fix it. I think they will.
If these issues are unacceptable to you, that's cool. I just want people to realize it's not as bad as they may have been led to believe.

 

[smooth4lyfe]

Im sorry my friend but I must say that at this point even one of the above issues are completely unacceptable. I mean come on this phone has the most powerful processor ever created for a phone matched with a company that has made billions. There should be absolutely no software issues like this when Samsung has tons of resources to gear towards making every user's experience a pleasant one. I've owned the Gs2, Gs3 and now the Note 2 and each has the same issues that fail to get fixed. These lag issues that you speak of are nothing new and are about 3 years old. Samsung is too focused on BS gimmicks than make the phone a smooth lag free experience.

Even $1000+ Macs slow down and freeze...no one thought they would, but they do
When it comes to hardware, nothing is perfect, but the GS4 definitely better than most of the competition if not the best

 

[truthteller10]

Even $1000+ Macs slow down and freeze...no one thought they would, but they do
When it comes to hardware, nothing is perfect, but the GS4 definitely better than most of the competition if not the best

The HTC ONE, Sony ZL and LG devices are nearly flawless in the lag department. Touchwiz uses so many resources that in it self uses over 1gb of ram. This fact is not even for debate.

 

[truthteller10]

And that's completely up to you to decide. Samsung needs to fix it. I think they will.
If these issues are unacceptable to you, that's cool. I just want people to realize it's not as bad as they may have been led to believe.

When will they fix these problems the lockscreen wake lag has been ongoing since the GS3?!

 

[smooth4lyfe]

The HTC ONE, Sony ZL and LG devices are nearly flawless in the lag department. Touchwiz uses so many resources that in it self uses over 1gb of ram. This fact is not even for debate.

Yeah, the problem is Touchwiz... Hopefully when they start using their Tizen OS than it would fox those problems

And the lag is not THAT bad... Unless u have a defective phone, the lockscreen lag really isn't something to complain about

Sent from my Galaxy S4 Exynos!

 

[truthteller10]

Yeah, the problem is Touchwiz... Hopefully when they start using their Tizen OS than it would fox those problems

And the lag is not THAT bad... Unless u have a defective phone, the lockscreen lag really isn't something to complain about

Sent from my Galaxy S4 Exynos!

Its still lag!!! Lag is lag!!

 

[Dreamliner330]

The smart stay and smart scroll can't see my eyes

Its still lag!!! Lag is lag!!

Agreed. Everybody craps on the iPhone...but it doesn't lag or jitter.

It is pretty troubling when a 2013 flagship device stumbles on simple things that 2010 Androids didn't


CyanogenMod will fix all...

I wish all Android phones would ship with stock Android and simply have a guided setup to allow the user to choose which manufacturer-installed items they want.

 

[killadon]

I guess I'm in the minority here because I can't bring myself to use a phone that doesn't have a menu button. Take golauncher ex for instance. I installed it on the htc one at the at&t store just to see if there was going to be a black bar for the menu button. Sure enough there was. Which IMHO just makes it look tacky.

 

[DioramaMaker]

You present some good points sir. Thank you for your run down.
-I too was very impressed by the feel of the phone. People played it down so much in initial reviews that I expected something that felt like a Mattel toy, when in reality the phone really feels quite solid with no bend to it. This has now become a mute point in my choice between the two phones, though yes, the ONE is the better build. Though I am slightly dissuaded by such a "permanent" construction, have you seen iFixit's teardown? I'm a techie guy and love that kinda stuff but man, I wouldn't want to attempt that, if it even is theoretically possible. Does that mean I don't like it? Hell no, I love the thing - it was the original android smartphone I wanted to get. If Samsung wouldn't have finally pushed 32gb's to the store I may very well have walked out of the store on Friday with an order for a 64gb ONE, who knows, I still might.

-Yes the ONE's body is beautiful, it is a piece of art in a handset, however I only wish it would have a removable battery. Quite frankly, I don't think that should be a big argument in this day and age. If Samsung can create a phone with a removable battery at that thickness, so can anyone else. I'm typically not a super green person or anything, I try with some things like recycling and such, but I have to say I really admire the ability to switch out a battery as it's lifespan goes down. A device all the sudden doesn't become useless because it has to be on a charger to function. Until we develop more energy efficient tech that can essentially be powered by something else (someone posted about transparent, high yield solar nantotech the other day that would reduce the thickness of phones tremendously, I cannot find this anymore, though I wish I could...it was really amazing.) replaceable batteries are great to extend the life of a device. I currently am using an iPhone 4 and the battery is quite poor by now, ultimately, the device won't go too far without needing a charger.

-The SD card is a a freebie to me, if I get a 64 gig ONE, I wouldn't worry about ever having the ability, but with a Galaxy, if I want it, I can use it. I do like the idea of being able to pull the micro SD and adapter from my DSLR and be able to view pictures on my phone, but it wouldn't change the world if I couldn't, you know? It's like the aluminum body. Do I need it in a phone? No. Is it nice if it comes with it? Most definitely.

-Speakers go to the ONE hands down. It is fantastic tech, I love it and am very impressed that such sound can come out of such a small device. I will miss this ability if I go with a Galaxy.

-As for the camera. Sigh, I don't know. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I like that the Galaxy can retain so much detail when the shots are taken but the overall tech in the ONE is super solid too, and a bold move. The ONE takes beautiful pictures, just as the Galaxy. Basically, I think you can say it like this. The Galaxy has a great camera under the right conditions while the ONE has a good camera in nearly all conditions. I have yet to come to a conclusion on what is better, but I don't think you can go wrong.

-As far as Lag goes, in the AT&T store I fiddled with the phone for 45 minutes, back and forth with the One and honestly, I never felt it slow down. I tried to get it to stutter, I tried the places people say it lags and didn't see it. Then again that isn't real world, but still. ONE had none as well.

-Touchwiz is ****. I don't like it and you bet I will put a launcher over it. I love Sense 5, I really do. I was even enticed by the blinkfeed to some degree, but one thing got me when I used the two in store: I liked that the wallpaper shows through on the Galaxy behind the app screen. I know this is a super subtle thing but I just was fond of it. But outside that I think with some tweaks Sense has a much better experience.

-The Galaxy's drop down toggle system is awesome.I know the power widgets remedies this on the ONE but it's great to have so many options right out of the box.

-I wanted to touch on this, because you said the same as me. The Galaxy has a pretty screen. It really is just great to look at color wise. While the ONE has the arguably better screen, the color on the Galaxy is just gorgeous. Side by side, the ONE is more lifelike I guess, It's replication of things is a lot better I think. But DEM GALAXY COLORS MANG.

-Capacitive buttons are a worthless argument. I see no problem in them, and I like them to be honest. The ONE's home button is sensitive, not unresponsive. You have to be deliberate to push it, and I think this was very intentional in design. The Galaxy's "hidden" capacitive buttons tickled my fancy when I first saw them light up though. I think it's a cool design that looks really neat.
My question is why do we need a physical home button and a lock button? You press the home button to wake the phone, but the lock button does the same. Why not just have a physical lock, yet have a (separate, as to avoid infringing on screen space) capacitive row like the Galaxy's buttons, containing the classic Android 3 button structure? They're hidden in the frame just like the Galaxy's are now, but don't infringe on screen space like they do on the ONE. Both parties can be happy now.

tl;dr
Both phones are great, while one both have their faults I don't think either will serve you poorly. As long as you get away from Apple, you're good.

 

[sfla99]

Ok, I was majorly On the fence as I had been slowly being drawn int the hype of the S4 and seconding my decision, I still am since I read both forums, but if you have to turn off all the extras on the S4 to get a relatively positive experience with the device it sort of defeats the purpose of owning it.

If Samsung would have spent the time and money it took them to develop all these apps that is causing issue and complaints and used those developer hours towards fixing their base experience to be the best possible experience they could offer they would have a lot more happy S4 owners.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD4

 

[varsityhacker]

Ok, I was majorly On the fence as I had been slowly being drawn int the hype of the S4 and seconding my decision, I still am since I read both forums, but if you have to turn off all the extras on the S4 to get a relatively positive experience with the device it sort of defeats the purpose of owning it.

If Samsung would have spent the time and money it took them to develop all these apps that is causing issue and complaints and used those developer hours towards fixing their base experience to be the best possible experience they could offer they would have a lot more happy S4 owners.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD4

You don't have to turn off all of the features to get a good experience using the phone. Anyway looks like Samsung is already releasing an update for the GS4 to fix stability problems.

 

[madlaw1071]

The HTC ONE, Sony ZL and LG devices are nearly flawless in the lag department. Touchwiz uses so many resources that in it self uses over 1gb of ram. This fact is not even for debate.

Yes but the One has a whole host of other issues, some can be fixed, some are design flaws.

 

[effreyj]

For anybody who hasn't tried it, I highly recommend Nova Launcher. It is so much smoother than the Touchwiz launcher and looks way closer to stock Jellybean.

 

[qnet]

I got a update this morning from Tmobile and it fixed my stutter issues for the most part. It operates about how my S3 did, maybe a little snappier. I never had a issue with the gallery app, but I never enabled automatic dropbox sync of photos.

 

[qnet]

For anybody who hasn't tried it, I highly recommend Nova Launcher. It is so much smoother than the Touchwiz launcher and looks way closer to stock Jellybean.

I'm definitely going to install Nova Launcher after my review.

 

[Eric Kane 1]

Let me preface this by saying that I do not pay for most of the phones I use. Testing and learning them is part of my job, and the hardware is a tool to do it with -- much like a mechanic needs wrenches. I've had a black Sprint S4 here for a bit, and have been observing and thinking about what I'm seeing.

Here's the most interesting part about what we're (Phil, Alex and myself) seeing about the lag. The Sprint version seems to be (much) more affected than the AT&T/Rogers version and the Euro version (S600). We have not tried the Exynos version. All I can think of here is something Sprint has pre-loaded may be contributing to the issue. That's not very scientific, but nothing sticks out to explain this.

Having said that, let me tell you that most of these "issues" about the lag are a bit overblown. Other than a gallery bug (more later) none are show-stoppingly bad. With the tweaks found in this forum and others (animations, shutting off services and S voice, etc) I see the following:

The lock screen lags if you're using any of the effects. The Ripple effect is the worst. Choose none.
Incoming notifications make the phone stall for a split second a fraction of a split second.
Opening apps sometimes will have a stutter. I've seen no pattern here, which makes me think this is dependent of either free RAM or CPU load.
Weather widget sometimes redraws when going back "home".
The Gallery is FUBAR

Other than the Gallery, none of these is nearly as bad as people make it out to be, especially if you've done any of the "fixes". Without turning off some of the features, yes it can be a bit frustrating on occasion, but there is nothing here that a bit of software tweaking won't fix. Samsung wants to sell a billion of these, and I expect some sort of update soonish to get people in love with the S4 again.

Now, the gallery. It's slow. It locks up. It freezes. It has caused a full reboot more than once. Not every time, but it's never a speedy experience. Especially if you've tied uploads to your Dropbox account to the camera photos. This will start out OK, but as you add items to the gallery it gets steadily worse. Samsung needs to fix the Gallery app. I'm sure they will. Alex says if you have enabled camera uploads in Dropbox, you'll need to factory reset to fix it. I've factory reset numerous times to see how apps affect the lag overall, so I have to believe him (as my gallery is better after a reset). I'm almost feeling there is an issue with the media scanner at play versus the code for the gallery app itself. Just a guess.

Now, since I didn't get in on the review for this one, my impressions of the best selling phone of the year (yes, it will be).

It's plastic. Lots of things are plastic. This is shiny and slick plastic, which looks and feels different from soft-touch plastic. If Samsung had just used a soft touch coating none of this crap would be an issue. They didn't. The phone isn't going to break because it's plastic, nor does it feel bad (or slimy like some folks mentioned). In fact, it feels very ergonomic and solidly built. It feels as good to hold as the HTC One does, at least to me.

The screen. I <3 Super AMOLED's colors and blacks. Yes, it's fake color but I don't care when I'm watching a movie. Having said that, the screen on the One or the iPhone 5 is clearer and slightly sharper. So what? The screen on the S4 is really nice, and with my glasses off holding it 2 inches from my eyes, I'm not hating pentile like I did with the G Nex or even the S3. If every phone came with a screen this good we'd be lucky.

The storage. 9GB. That's enough for me. It might not be enough for you. It's not gonna change, and if you want everything but the kitchen sink included you have to have somewhere to put it all. Know in advance that you get about 9GB free on the 16GB version, and deal with it your own way. Wait for the 32 or 64, get a One, switch back to the iPhone, whatever you need to do. Just do it

The features. Half of them don't work as advertised. But when they are shut off they are out of my way. I do wish the translate app worked a bit better, and that Samsung would just abandon S Voice altogether

I would choose the HTC One, because I like the camera features and front facing speakers. I also need to hate on the SD card and menu button, which I think is holding back the whole platform. But you might not think that way. It's cool. Diff'rent strokes and all.

Hopefully, this helps someone who hasn't had a chance to see the S4 for themselves sort through all the online garbage about lag, and plastic, and gimmicks, and 9GB.

I've been spending the better part of the last week saying most of these things verbatim. I haven't had a chance to use the TMobile or Sprint versions of the S4, but I do have the AT&T version and had the Exynos version for the weekend before selling it on Craigslist. As Smooth4Lyfe stated, the gallery on the Exynos version was virtually lag free. In fact, the majority of the issues that plagues my AT&T version were better, if not nonexistent, on the Exynos 5. That being said, none of these issues are showstoppers and as much as some people want to believe it (and most of them don't even own the S4 to have formed any sort of opinion), the "lag" is definitely overblown. It needs to be addressed and a company that plans on selling millions of these will undoubtedly do so.

The Gallery is definitely an issue. No defending that one.

The storage controversy just makes me laugh. I have 9.72GB available on my AT&T S4. That's roughly 1.5-2GB less than the S3 if I remember correctly. The difference is so negligible that even with 12GB, the people complaining about the storage probably wouldn't have had enough, anyways. As far as the 32GB and 64GB versions, and Jerry you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but that was most likely your carriers choice not to purchase them, not Samsungs choice not to offer them. Verizon offered the 32GB S3 last year and I doubt they sold that many of them. If the demand isn't there, the carriers aren't going to purchase them and take a loss. I'd bet that Verizon took a loss on the 32GB versions and that's why they basically put them on fire sale at one point last year. I know that so many of you feel that because you want it and several hundred people posting here on an Android forum want it, that it's got to be offered. Unfortunately, we're the minority. AT&T is probably taking a gamble here, but offering the 32GB version $50 less than the iPhone 5 32GB version might help.

Having used both phones, the One and S4, I chose the S4. I like the 5-inch screen both because of the size, usable size in apps, and because I prefer AMOLED to LCD. I also like the design/feel and the camera better. Again, to each their own. Everyone has different preferences and the cool thing is that between the One and the S4, almost the entire spectrum is covered.

The final thing I want to say on this is that if you haven't used the S4, and no I don't count using the demo at the store for 10 minutes as using it, then refrain with the comments as if you know how the phone runs/works. The same thing goes with people who haven't used the One. Making negative comments on either phone because you've "heard" something could impact someones decision to buy the device when it could be the best fit for them.

Appreciate the feedback, Jerry.