User Review: Samsung Galaxy S4

[Eric Kane]

Great review. For me, I have always been a function/performance/user experience over style. I could care less for a unibody aluminum case with front facing stereo speakers especially without the latest version of JB, smaller screen, inferior camera, a stiffer UI skin that does nothing to improve the user experience and no micro sdxc card slot/removable battery as in the One that the "experts" are fawning over. How can you offer a flagship smartphone without the most current version of JB? From a carrier perspective, it may be some time before the One is updated to 4.2.2, IMHO.

Sent Via My Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Tablet

Nothing wrong with preferring one device over the other. I could care less what phone people use/buy, as long as they had all the information they needed to make that decision.

 

[LegalAmerican]

Even this morning I said in a comment that I prefer a different phone over the S4 if I was in the market to buy. HOWEVER, since this morning I have slowly but surely started to shift my opinion of what i'd buy. There's a lot of pro's and con's with every device on the market, but Samsung is simply offering the most (IN MY OPINION) in terms of software experience and user interface. It's fine with me if people call it a gimmick, because one man's trash is another man's treasure. I am a BBQ connoisseur. So Samsung did a smart thing when showing the graduate eating ribs in their commercial because that hit me right between the eyes. I would get A LOT of use out of a feature like that, while a vegetarian may not. And that's okay because it fits my needs and it's my money. I appreciate this review. I am interested to see what Samsung does with the Note 3 and then i'd probably make a decision (between the Note 3 and S4) at the end of the year if I end up looking for a new device.

 

[snookasnoo]

I still don't care for the S 4 but thats a pretty great review.

- - - Updated - - -

All of those things are great but they have just overdone Touchwiz too much this time. They also made the buttons much better btw.

Yes we users are really hurting. Packing a full HD 5" screen, 13mp camera, huge battery into a smaller, lighter package is really nothing new and just a minor upgrade.

 

[BUYSELLFIL]

I am having some issues with the AT&T 32GB S4 for the following reasons and hope others can let me know if they are having the same issues.
1.) Call quality on Speaker is muffled to those on the other side.
2.) In the middle of conversations I can hear people but they can't hear me and calls have ended with (I can't hear you, if you and if you can hear me call back.)
3.) I downloaded speedtest.net on the S4 and I ran it sitting next to the S3 16GB from AT&T (my old phone) and the upload speed is a bit faster, nothing crazy but the download is a LOWER number.

I am not sure what is going on here!

Also --> Is NOVA Launcher considered a ROOT to the device?

 

[planoman]

I am having some issues with the AT&T 32GB S4 for the following reasons and hope others can let me know if they are having the same issues.
1.) Call quality on Speaker is muffled to those on the other side.
2.) In the middle of conversations I can hear people but they can't hear me and calls have ended with (I can't hear you, if you and if you can hear me call back.)
3.) I downloaded speedtest.net on the S4 and I ran it sitting next to the S3 16GB from AT&T (my old phone) and the upload speed is a bit faster, nothing crazy but the download is a LOWER number.

I am not sure what is going on here!

Have you updated to the newest firmware? I have not used the speaker but thought the earpiece was louder than I expected and the ability to adjust to sound mode during a call was neat. Have not done a comparison speed test because it is FAST where I live regardless. I received my 32GB yesterday and did the update tonight and I must say I am impressed so far!

No, Nova is does not require root access in any way.

 

[BUYSELLFIL]

I did a CHECK FOR UPDATE and it said that no updates were available.

Settings are

Baseband Version: O337UCUAMDL

Kernel Version: 3.4.0-453947

Build Number: JDQ39.I337UCUAMDL

Can someone with an S3 on Wifi please run a test for the same location (I did Washington DC) and let me know the Upload and Download results...

 

[BUYSELLFIL]

Nova cleared all my folder setup that I spent 2 nights creating.. YIKES!!