My wife and I both have available upgrades on AT&T so I purchased each type. I own an iPhone 5, and Nexus 4 and have owned Android devices in the past. I don't root for HTC or Samsung. I don't care about aluminum vs. plastic, I just want to phone what works well for me. I have had the One for a week and the S4 for a day. Here are a few random observations to help people that might have some questions.
--We did a blind call quality test to a landline. 3 people listening on a landline with two separate calls agreed that my iPhone 5 was narrowly better than One, with the S4 a distant third (this is on AT&T in Chicago, so your experience might vary). The S4 was OK, but words were not as crisp as the other two. Also, the S4 earpiece was the 3rd choice among all 3 people.
--S4 feels fantastic in the hand due to the curved corners and thinner body. I like as light weight a phone as possible, so I prefer the feel and operation of the S4. The One is slightly narrower and the curved back is good, but I would choose the S4 for feel in the hand and lighter weight.
--S4 speaker is as loud, if not louder than the One, but it is definitely tinnier, so One has better quality, and better positioning, but they are very similar in terms of pure volume, and I do think S4 is louder
--While the 5" screen is easier to read text than the 4.7, the differences were slight, but I still prefer as large a screen as possible and Samsung did a great job squeezing it in there. For example, in looking at Gmail e-mails, the S4 can show the top half of one more e-mail than the One, and text is a little larger on the S4
--Regarding the black bar menu on the One in an app like Tapatalk, side by side, you can see a maybe one more line of text within a post on the S4, so the bar isn't that much of a hindrance, but the One has a little smaller text to compensate for the missing screen space caused by the menu bar.
--Home button on the S4 is nice option for waking the phone than having to reach up to the top of the One, but even with all the extra S4 features turned off, there is almost a full second between pressing the button and moving back to home. I don't notice lag anywhere else on the S4 except for the home button. S4 power button on the side is well placed. The One is lightning fast. The home and back buttons have a small sweet spot, and I calibrated the One to as light a touch as possible, and after a week, I don't even think of those two buttons as being an issue. In the first few days, and before I calibrated, those small sweet spots drove me nuts. Now, all is well.
--The only "extra" features that I find useful on the S4 is Smart Stay (doesn't always work) and Airview.
--I changed the S4 screen setting to Movie which makes is close to the One in terms of saturation. The One has a whiter whites and the S4 whites are more off-white or blue cast, but not as bad as I have seen years ago. In the Movie setting, colors were very close, but the difference in whites was noticeable. At the default setting on the S4, I know the over-the-top color saturation is unnatural, but there is something really fun about it, and I do find that to be a feature unique to Samsung.
--The system fonts on the One are more pleasing to my eye than the S4, but that is a matter of personal taste for sure. They are VERY thin and not everybody will like this.
--For me, Sense 5 is a calmer experience than Touchwiz, but that would be near the bottom of my list in deciding.
--Surprisingly to me, I found Blinkfeed to be useful. As a Flipboard guy, I couldn't see a use for Blinkfeed, but it shows more articles per screen than Flipboard, and depending on how it is setup, it gives a nice variety of content, and I am a huge RSS fanatic but it still brings me content that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. I expected to move it off the home screen immediately but it is still there.
--I'm not a big camera guy. Just fooling around with both, they both seemed fine to me, but I wouldn't dare offer an serious opinion as I haven't looked closely.
I hope that helps people making their choice. As of now, I prefer the One as the user experience feels better to me and it is why I am posting in the One Forum, but I need to put the S4 through it's full paces, and then my wife will have to decide as well. Try to experience them both in person, as features will speak to each person differently. There is no clear cut winner, you just have to choose based on what matters most to you because these are two very different devices.
--We did a blind call quality test to a landline. 3 people listening on a landline with two separate calls agreed that my iPhone 5 was narrowly better than One, with the S4 a distant third (this is on AT&T in Chicago, so your experience might vary). The S4 was OK, but words were not as crisp as the other two. Also, the S4 earpiece was the 3rd choice among all 3 people.
--S4 feels fantastic in the hand due to the curved corners and thinner body. I like as light weight a phone as possible, so I prefer the feel and operation of the S4. The One is slightly narrower and the curved back is good, but I would choose the S4 for feel in the hand and lighter weight.
--S4 speaker is as loud, if not louder than the One, but it is definitely tinnier, so One has better quality, and better positioning, but they are very similar in terms of pure volume, and I do think S4 is louder
--While the 5" screen is easier to read text than the 4.7, the differences were slight, but I still prefer as large a screen as possible and Samsung did a great job squeezing it in there. For example, in looking at Gmail e-mails, the S4 can show the top half of one more e-mail than the One, and text is a little larger on the S4
--Regarding the black bar menu on the One in an app like Tapatalk, side by side, you can see a maybe one more line of text within a post on the S4, so the bar isn't that much of a hindrance, but the One has a little smaller text to compensate for the missing screen space caused by the menu bar.
--Home button on the S4 is nice option for waking the phone than having to reach up to the top of the One, but even with all the extra S4 features turned off, there is almost a full second between pressing the button and moving back to home. I don't notice lag anywhere else on the S4 except for the home button. S4 power button on the side is well placed. The One is lightning fast. The home and back buttons have a small sweet spot, and I calibrated the One to as light a touch as possible, and after a week, I don't even think of those two buttons as being an issue. In the first few days, and before I calibrated, those small sweet spots drove me nuts. Now, all is well.
--The only "extra" features that I find useful on the S4 is Smart Stay (doesn't always work) and Airview.
--I changed the S4 screen setting to Movie which makes is close to the One in terms of saturation. The One has a whiter whites and the S4 whites are more off-white or blue cast, but not as bad as I have seen years ago. In the Movie setting, colors were very close, but the difference in whites was noticeable. At the default setting on the S4, I know the over-the-top color saturation is unnatural, but there is something really fun about it, and I do find that to be a feature unique to Samsung.
--The system fonts on the One are more pleasing to my eye than the S4, but that is a matter of personal taste for sure. They are VERY thin and not everybody will like this.
--For me, Sense 5 is a calmer experience than Touchwiz, but that would be near the bottom of my list in deciding.
--Surprisingly to me, I found Blinkfeed to be useful. As a Flipboard guy, I couldn't see a use for Blinkfeed, but it shows more articles per screen than Flipboard, and depending on how it is setup, it gives a nice variety of content, and I am a huge RSS fanatic but it still brings me content that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. I expected to move it off the home screen immediately but it is still there.
--I'm not a big camera guy. Just fooling around with both, they both seemed fine to me, but I wouldn't dare offer an serious opinion as I haven't looked closely.
I hope that helps people making their choice. As of now, I prefer the One as the user experience feels better to me and it is why I am posting in the One Forum, but I need to put the S4 through it's full paces, and then my wife will have to decide as well. Try to experience them both in person, as features will speak to each person differently. There is no clear cut winner, you just have to choose based on what matters most to you because these are two very different devices.
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram