With the Samsung Galaxy S4 beginning to arrive in the hands of U.S. customers, the new phone is sure to bring joy to a number of early adopters. If you already own a Galaxy S3, however, you may be wondering if it's worth the hassle (and money) to upgrade.
If you just go by all the Internet reports, the Galaxy S4 is a beast. Look at all those features! Eight cores! Reality, though, is a little more complicated. The Galaxy S4 will undoubtedly be a great phone, but are Galaxy S3 owners really missing out if they pass on this year's model? Here are four reasons why they might not be:
A lot of the Galaxy S4's features will actually hit the Galaxy S3
Sure, the Galaxy S4 has a smorgasbord of new software onboard, but Samsung won't be keeping all its other users completely in the dark. In fact, right after the newest smartphone was unveiled, executive Nick DiCarlo confirmed that Galaxy S3 owners would likely get a bunch of them.
"Anything that we can do that's not dependent on hardware like infrared, we'll definitely bring to all the flagship devices," he said.
While that means that more sophisticated features that require built-in hardware to function aren't likely to make the cut (S Health needs a built-in pedometer, and the TV remote feature needs an IR blaster), you can expect other things like new camera add-ons and eye-tracking to be made available in a future update.
The Galaxy S4 doesn't look very different compared to the Galaxy S3
If you were hoping for Samsung to radically alter its phone's design, well, you're out of luck. Not only do the two Galaxy phones look pretty much identical (unless an extra .2 inches of screen size are that important to you), but they're built out of the same material, too. Word on the street (yup) is that Samsung is looking into making future phones out of more premium material, considering the reception the HTC One has received, but for now, you know what to expect.
The U.S. Galaxy S4 doesn't have eight cores
Admittedly, this isn't a feature I personally care about, but considering it was one of the most-hyped rumors in the run-up to the phone's reveal, it's still noteworthy. International Galaxy S4 devices will sport the octa-core Exynos processor, but U.S. versions will pack Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon 600. It's still a boost over the Galaxy S3, but is it something you need badly enough to trade in your phone for? Depending on how much you tax your phone, it could be, but for the general user, the S3 will keep performing just fine.
Do you actually need all those new features?
Yes, the Galaxy S4 has a ton of new features, and yeah, a bunch will probably hit the Galaxy S3 at some point. But even if they don't, how much will it matter? Samsung has spent a lot of effort making its Android-based TouchWiz UI its own, but the feature creep has started to make some people wonder if the company is going a bit overboard. If you find that the S4 is sporting functions that you're really keen on, then it's probably worth the investment. Before you throw down your cash, though, it's a good idea to think about what new features you're genuinely interested in.
