The Samsung Galaxy S4 has been out for a few weeks now, and everyone is debating over whether or not it's indeed the "next big thing" we were promised (nearly ad infinitum) throughout the uber-hyped pre-marketing period that included the mobile manufacturer taking over Times Square in New York City for an evening just to unveil the smartphone to the public for the first time.
Already, there's been a number of complaints about the Samsung Galaxy S4, as it seems to be having problems with everything from overheating and battery drain to memory and Wi-Fi problems that Samsung itself has been apologizing for almost as ad infinitum at this point.
There's even been claims that the Galaxy S4 is not the "next big thing" and never was, but rather just a slight upgrade from the Samsung Galaxy S3, which itself is a fine smartphone that aside from a few quirks, really needed no upgrade at all.
We had a chance to play with a Samsung Galaxy S4 and compared it to a Galaxy S3 that happens to be owned, operated and nearly all but beloved by this writer who last month switched from a Lumia 822 to the S3, becoming an Android addict forevermore.
The real question being, is the Samsung Galaxy S4 basically just a slight upgrade (if that, even) from the Galaxy S3?
Here's what we discovered:
Design
This is where there is the absolute slightest difference between the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy S3. Putting the two phones up against each other, you can hardly discern any difference at all, and in fact both phones weigh almost exactly the same amount.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is about 132g and the S3 is about 133g. When you pick them up, you can hardly tell the difference and if you didn't have the S3 to compare it to at all, the S4 would just seem like a nice, light-weight phone that fits easily into your pocket.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 has, again, a slightly smaller screen (4.8 inches to the S4's 5 inches), but this too is hardly discernible without the two phones being placed together.
Frankly, I prefer a smaller phone, as –– to me, at least –– mobility is about just that. If I were to get an iPad, I'd get an iPad mini (I want it to fit in a large jacket pocket or something, not be something I have to lug around like a big book or notebook). And, at this point, I would wait for the iPad mini 2 anyway, but that's another article.
When you place the Samsung Galaxy S3 on top of the Samsung Galaxy S4, you can barely see the S4 poking above the head of the S3. Again, they're essentially the same size, so no big change-up there for the S4.
The design itself has not changed one iota aside from an extra (very small and almost unnoticeable) sensor hole on the S4 in the upper right corner for Air View and Smart Scroll functionality (we'll get to those in a moment).
To the naked and uneducated eye, the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Samsung Galaxy S4 look identical, as the latter retains the same sized buttons, holes, slots, sensors and general appearance of the S3.
Speed
In starting up the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy S3 at the same exact time, the S3 actually shot ahead at first. It seemed as though the S3 –– with its 1.5 GHz quad-core processor –– would actually beat the S4 to the punch (or, in this case, the home screen). But then the S4 -- with its Snapdragon 600 1.9GHz processor –– caught up and won the show. But, just barely.
Where the slight boost in processor for the Galaxy S4 really won out was in Internet connectivity. In trying to go to simple websites such as Google and IMDB on both phones at the same time, there was no question of the winner: the S4 would navigate to the sites almost instantaneously, whereas the S3 would slowly tread its way there after a few infinite-seeming seconds.
The interface of the S4 seems very smooth and graceful and though the S3 has a terrific interface itself, it was pretty clear the processor boost (probably along with the fact that the S4 has twice the RAM of my S3) left the S4's interface just slightly more "fluid" and organic than that of the S3. This is definitely another case of your not being able to tell the difference if you didn't have an S3 right next to the S4, but it's still lovely to know the S4 does hold some semblance of superiority here.
Functionality
Whereas the new sidebar that can be pulled out of the side of the phone's screen might seem like a good idea as far as integration into the Samsung Galaxy S4, it's not that necessary and just lends itself to being another distraction in a phone that is already pretty jam-packed with stuff.
I prefer my S3's more minimal screen features, thank you. There's plenty there already, and we don't need to add anything to mix. Law of Diminishing Returns, folks: it's a reality.
Making a call on the phones sounds identical. Period. One nice difference is that when you make a call to someone whose photo you don't have on the S4, rather than the rather caustic FBI-esque anonymous photo popping up (as with the S3), you get an adorable little happy-faced anonymous cartoon, complete with emo hair swirl.
The keyboards' Swype feature are, of course, again quite similar, though the S4's does seem slightly faster than the S3's Swype.
The intuitive autocorrect is actually a bit better on the S3, though, as when one puts "Indiana" into the S3's keyboard, the next word it suggests is "Jones." The S4 fails to bring ol' Doctor Jones along with it from the S3, even after we typed it in so it could hopefully learn. (Clearly, it didn't like Indiana Jones 4 anymore than we did.)
Air View and the Smart Scroll features on the S4 are also seemingly unnecessary and just were difficult to use.
Air View only works automatically with a few specific apps like Flipboard, it seems, and though we've been told you can program other apps and features of the S4 with it, considering how poorly it really works, its almost not worth it.
It's also a bit annoying because if you have Air View on with an app or feature for which it's calibrated, your phone can too easily start doing wacky things without your meaning to, much like when you're calling a billing office or something and the automatic message asks you to say your social security number and a loud truck passes by, making a noise that confuses said automatic billing service message. Suddenly you're on a whole other queue than you wanted to be and you just end up hanging up. Air View seems to be a lot like that.
Considering Air View isn't new to Samsung –– the Note 2 uses it, too, though with a Stylus Pen –– one would think Samsung would be getting it together enough to make the thing work a bit better. Perhaps it's just fear of/difficulty with new tech, but Air View still seems to need some work before Samsung uses it again on, say, the Note 3, in the humble opinion of this writer.
So too with the Smart Scroll feature, by the way. Smart Scroll is supposed to allow you to use your eyes to scroll down text or whatnot, but it barely worked, and when it did, it didn't work very well at all. We went back to IMDB to check it out, and it took a while for the phone to register our eye movements, and when it did, it wouldn't stop even after we did. Then we tried to scroll back up, and it just didn't happen.
Once again, looks like Samsung still has some work to do on Smart Scroll.
Being that both the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Samsung Galaxy S4 have basically the same rear cameras (12-megapixels for the S3 and 13 for the S4), it's no surprise that aside from the fact that the S4's photos look a little less blurry when there's movement and appear a bit lighter in lower-light conditions, one wouldn't really be able to tell the difference between the photos taken by the two different cameras.
The 720p resolution of the S3 didn't seem any worse than the 1080p of the S4, either, even when placed up next to each other.
As for battery power, as we've already reported (along with a few other critics and users themselves), the S3's battery more or less sucks ... and the S4's doesn't seem to be much better.
In fact, the S4's battery power dropped by 7 percent in the time we used it to make some of these comparisons, and the S3's battery power "only" dropped 6 percent. Both of these being pretty dreadful numbers, but at least it seems the S3 might have a bit better battery power than the S4.
Final summation
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a fine phone, but aside from a few new features that don't seem very integral to the user and seem to not work as well as they should, the S4 is basically just an S3.
You can save yourself the $50 and just get an S3 instead of an S4, if you want, or wait until Samsung fixes some of the problems with the S4 that Samsung itself has apologized for and get a Note 3 or whatever the mystery Tizen-powered phone will be that is allegedly coming soon.
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