I regret replacing my Note 2 with the GS4.

[lin64]

Hi, sorry to hear that your Galaxy S4 is lag. Try Nova launcher instead of Apex launcher. I've used Nova for awhile with no problem till I tried Apex n it got my S4 hanged. After installing Apex I did a reboot n it hanged with only the screen showing "Samsung". I had no choice but to hard reset my phone which means all data will be cleared. While trying to do a hard reset the home screen came back which I do not know how n m very relief that all my data were intact. Hope by changing launcher your problems will be solved.

Regds

Lin

 

[SCGooner]

Hi,

I just joined. I'm on t-mobile, pre-paid, but with the GS4 I can switch to 4G on a daily basis. I've had this new phone for about 2 weeks and just returned from a trip to southern California, where my car broke down and I got a very good chance to see how well the phone would perform (being on the phone frequently and for long calls)

It does get a bit warm, but I'm not sure if that's the battery or CPU. Location suggests it's the battery discharge generating the heat.

I switched it to Power Saving mode, but hadn't many long calls after the initial incident with insurance and various garages (insurer kept trying to shift repair from dealership to local garages, not that I have anything against them, I expect they don't keep the parts in stock and the delay would have been much longer.)

As for lag, I found the phone to be very responsive compared to the Gingerbread model I have for work.

Camera is rather wonky, seems too easily it decides to do burst mode, as I have a 32GB SD it's not really an issue) Does seem to be a bit frustrating to get photos at some times, which require the reticle to give you the OK, like my Canon 6D, geez how I miss stupid old 35mm film cameras which just took the blasted picture. Haven't found a better camera anyway, operationalwise.

Battery life seems short. There are 4 cores chewing through java, javascript, HTML5 and whatever, which is all bloat as far as I'm concerned. Web response time was pretty good, but really don't like the Google Maps interface. Keep hitting the icons on maps and it just moves it around like some April Fools thing from years go. Some tuning needed there.

Otherwise, it's a good phone as long as I don't have super high expectations - it's a communications device, nothing more.

 

[anon(6148772)]

But it sounds like all software issues to me...couldn't that all be resolved by just simply putting a good rom on it like rootbox for example witch I use on my note2 and is perfect and also available for the s4? Just saying these problems your having are all just a bad O.S, a new O.S is all you need...It does have better hardware so I think if software is the only issue then its not really an issue at all

 

[anon(5780458)]

The Galaxy S4 is slower than my Galaxy S2. Totally serious. It's unable to keep up with the resolution on the screen and lags worse than many ancient Android devices. It also looks like Samsung has a Frankenstein build of Android. They keep removing all the new Android 4.X UI elements and replacing them with hideous 2.X elements. Who knows if they're even replacing vital Android code???

 

[s4lemon]

Could not agree more. I have the s4 - and although a recent software update has improved things somewhat - I named it the "king of lag and stutter". Seriously, my s2 runs a lot smoother. Previous Samsung flagship phones were all very good but the s4 is lemon - period! Just got the iphone 5s and it is as smooth as butter, next to it the s4 runs like a phone from two generations back.