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Samsung Galaxy S4 Review

Samsung is already on its fourth iteration of its highly popular and successful Galaxy S line. It is now pretty obvious that the Galaxy line made Samsung the No. 1 smartphone brand worldwide. With competition inching closer, the question remains if Samsung can maintain the wide lead. Read our Samsung Galaxy S4 review to find out.

The Galaxy S4 comes in a number of variant combinations — White Frost and Black Mist colors as well as Exynos or Snapdragon chip with either 3G/HSPA+ or LTE, depending on the region.

For the Philippines, we are expecting both the Exynos and Snapdragon variant with LTE but for the purpose of this review we are using the Snapdragon 600 model in White Frost.

Design and Construction.

The Galaxy S4 did not depart much from the design of its predecessor, the Galaxy S3. There were a lot of refinements introduced but the basic size and form factor remained almost the same.


Side by side: Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S3

In order to add that 0.199 inches of display (diagonally), Samsung tried to narrow down the size of the bezel. There’s probably a millimeter or two shaved off from the side and about half a centimeter extension towards the home button at the bottom end.

This approach allowed the Galaxy S4 to have a smaller foot-print compared to the other 5-inch, full HD smartphones that have been released earlier (i.e., HTC Butterfly, Sony Xperia Z). In some instances, because of the relatively smaller body, it might give people the impression that it has a smaller display size. That impression could either work for or against the Galaxy S4, depending on who’s looking for what.

In hindsight, by retaining the body size, the Galaxy S4 ended up being more comfortable on the hands. It fits right well and does not overwhelm on prolonged use. Compared to the HTC Butterfly or the Xperia Z, we can still hold and type an SMS with one hand instead of two, effortlessly. Again, this is subjective as it will depend on the size of your hands and the comfort level of using one or both hands.

The finish has a unique texture design that reminds us of the patterns used in the Nexus 4 and Optimus G (with the S4, though, the pattern is both at the back and front). The pattern beneath the polished exterior is more subtle and will only be prominent at a certain angle.

The power button is found in the right side of the device while the volume rocker is on the left. The 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top side along with a noise-canceling microphone and an IR Blaster. At the front is the physical home button flanked by two soft buttons for Menu and Back. The 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera is on the top corner and paraded by 3 more sensors.

At the rear are the 13-megapixel camera with the LED flash just below it as well as the speaker grills at the bottom left corner.

The device less plasticky compared to the Galaxy S3 despite the fact that they use the same polycarbonate materials. The silver trimming around the corners look and feels metallic but it’s also polycarbonate as well. The S4 feels more compact and has that premium feel to it. The glossy body can be slippery especially if you have sweaty or oily palm.

Display.

Samsung’s makes their own display and they’ve fully invested in AMOLED/PLS technology so it is no surprise that they’ll employ a full HD 1080p Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy S4. This display type has been used for a long time already so it’s nothing new except for the fact that Samsung packed it with a twice more pixels.

With a pixel density of 441ppi, the Galaxy S4 stands side-by-side the HTC Butterfly and the Xperia Z with the highest resolution in any smartphone we’ve ever tested and reviewed.

Without a doubt, the S4 has one of the most impressive smartphone displays — rich and vibrant colors, wide viewing angles, high contrast and color saturation.


BB Z10, Galaxy S4, One X+, iPhone 5: Notice the bluish tint when the Galaxy S4 display is turned off.

Unfortunately, the only thing that we noticed though is displaying white color tends become a bit greenish/yellowish. This is evident once you place it side by side another display that uses an IPS panel (just launch a browser and set to a white blank page). Even in the off state, the screen has a bluish tinge to it. This is a characteristic that all other AMOLED displays have.

OS, Apps and UI.

Samsung has obviously placed a lot of focus on making their TouchWiz UI more palatable to the growing sophistication of Android users. The Galaxy S4 comes with Android 4.2.2 Jellybean right out of the box but Samsung made sure that their UI layer and the accompanying features can do so much more.

They highlighted four experiences and created apps to cater to them (Fun, Relationship, Life Task, Life Care). To some, it might just look like bloatware but there are instances that it could be useful or fun to use.

Of course, there are 3rd-party apps that function similarly which you can install in any Android smartphone. Samsung made sure that there are hardware sensors that go along with it so the features are more functional and accurate.

The built-in features might have equivalent 3rd-party apps in the Play Store but it’s nice to know that Samsung is doing way more than what a regular Android licensee is doing on the software front. Maybe, it is also Samsung’s way to diminish the brand value that Google is heavily imposing on the platform.

Usability seems to be getting a lot of attention with Samsung and as such, features like Smart Scroll, Smart Pause, S Translator, and Air Gestures might come in handy in some rare cases. It’s a neat trick but we could not definitively point if it’s a genius stroke of modern usability or just a complex gesture of gimmickry.

For the usual texting and calling, the virtual keyboard and keypad of the S4 works well, although we wish the qwerty keys were wider. We we’re thoroughly impressed that Samsung manages to kick in Android 4.2.2 Jellybean right out of the box when most other handsets struggle at getting 4.1 at launch.

Multimedia & Camera.

Perhaps one of the most comprehensive developments Samsung has ever made for the Galaxy S4 was its multimedia features. It is the very first flagship smartphone from Sammy to sport an IR blaster (following the likes of the Galaxy Note 10.1, Note 8.0, Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus). If you have a nice Samsung LED TV at home, the IR Blaster (Samsung WatchON) could get very handy. In some cases, it can also control certain cable boxes and DVD players.

[fancygallery id=”8″ album=”8″]

The 13-megapixel shooter does not add anything optically superior to other Galaxy phones like the S3 or the Note 2, except obviously for the bump in the megapixels. What makes it more exciting for regular customers though is the plethora of camera tricks it can do — Sound & Shot, Dual Camera, Drama Shot, Story Album. Our favorite is the anti-photobombing feature.

Same goes with the video recording. It’s the first time we’ve seen the rear and front-facing camera capture video at the same time, and at 1080p resolution.

The rear and front camera of the S4 are already very good but if you’ve been using the S3 or the Note for sometime, don’t expect any more improvement that what you’ve been getting.

Group Play, a feature that allows you to share and play music from one S4 to multiple other S4 devices all at the same time, is also something we wanted to test out but that requires several Galaxy S4 to demonstrate.

Performance and Benchmarks.

The Galaxy S4 performs really well, navigation and transitions are smooth, has efficient multi-tasking while running all other sensors at the background.

Our Quadrant benchmark places the S4 i9505 at the top of the heap with a score of 12,413. For Antutu Benchmark, the S4 i9505 got a whooping 28,444, the highest score we’ve ever seen anywhere. We did expect the NenaMark 2 score of 60.2fps so nothing surprising there.

The Galaxy S4 manages to cut thru anything we throw at it, from graphics-intensive games to full HD movies even while a dozen other apps are running on the background. The split screen function allows for two active windows to simultaneously work and even if both apps are resource-intensive, we didn’t see the unit choked for even a second.

Call Quality, Connectivity and Battery Life.

After about two weeks of using the Galaxy S4, we’ve never had a single problem with calls or SMS although that’s really dependent on the location and network (we used a Globe LTE nano-SIM from our iPhone 5). Calls are clear and crisp, same as with sending and receiving SMS. The old Samsung call features such as Direct Call does work its wonders (especially when you’re driving).

As for connectivity, we’re pretty satisfied with the speed the LTE network gave us — our highest downlink speed was 26Mbps and highest uplink speed was 17Mbps (using Globe LTE). NFC has made it more convenient to pair and transfer files on the go, although we sometimes hit a bump when doing the tap-dance with other brands/OS (like in the case of the BB Z10).

As for battery life, the 2600mAh Li-Ion battery does a good job at getting us a full day of moderate to heavy use; a little over a day for casual to moderate use; and a total of about 4-5 hours when used solely as WiFi hotspot running on LTE.

What we did to standardize our battery bench was to run a 1 hour & 45-minute movie (1080p MP4) in a loop at 50% brightness and 0% audio volume (to simulate usage when on headphones). The battery stress test gave us an average of 11.5 hours of movie playback.

For mobile connectivity, we are able to register a high of 26Mbps downlink and 17Mbps for uplink using the LTE nano-SIM from Globe. We believe the S4 is also the first handset to have the WiFi 802.11ac standard that offers high-bandwidth speeds on the 5GHz band. This will prove useful when streaming content to other devices, like a TV, over WiFi network.

Conclusion.

It’s pretty obvious Samsung is putting more focus now on the software aside from the hardware. This is evident with the new TouchWiz UI, the loaded Camera App, the multitude of environmental sensors (barometer, temperature, humidity), and the polishing of the ecosystem and user-experience.

It would have been easy to conclude that the Galaxy S4 is merely a more polished and well-designed version of the Galaxy S3, and in some aspects, it holds true. However, we think Samsung has moved on to the next layer of perfecting their handsets while competitors are just starting to catch up on the hardware front.

Nevertheless, we think the Galaxy S4 has almost everything any customer would expect from a flagship device — an impressive set of hardware, a more refined design, a polished user-interface, a great camera plus all the bells and whistles that Samsung can think of (yes, we see a hint of Apple-envy here).

With a suggested retail price of Php30,990, we believe Samsung will continue to sell a gazillion of these babies this year.

Samsung Galaxy S4 i9505 specs:
4.99-inch display full HD Super AMOLED @ 1920x1080p, 441ppi
Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 1.9GHz quad-core
Adreno 320 Graphics
2GB LP-DDR3 RAM
16, 32GB, 64GB
Up to 64GB microSD
HSPA+, LTE 100Mbps (6 bands)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, dual-band WiFi Direct
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS w/ aGPS support
NFC
IR Blaster
13MP autofocus, rear camera with LED flash
1080p video recording @ 30fps
2MP front-facing camera
1080p video recording @ 30fps
7.9mm
Li-Ion Battery 2600mAh
Android 4.2.2 Jellybean

What we liked about it:
* Top-notch performance
* Very high display resolution
* Great camera performance and features
* High-speed LTE connectivity
* NFC functions and features
* IR Blaster
* Good battery life

What we did not like:
* More gimmicky features and bloatware

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

115 Responses

  1. Avatar for JohnRoyCruz JohnRoyCruz says:

    I just wanna say that the specs is not the only thing that would matter when it comes to experience. I have used apple 4 4s and 5. But i am currently using note 2. Only because it’s battery lasts for a day on heavy use. Samsung has to invest on powerful hardware specs to have a more seamless connection with the OS which Apple doesnt need. I honestly think the touch experience in apple devices is way better than samsung despite running on a more conservative hardware than samsung’s android devices.

    • Avatar for JP JP says:

      As a user of both GN2 and iPhone 4s. I must admit both have certain strengths and weaknesses.
      A jailbroken ios device trumps a stock android. But a rooted android device tops a jailbroken ios device. A jailbroken ios device hasa lot to offer especially if you maximize its potential by adding specific tweaks from various repositories. You just have to know their uses and capacities. Ios is fluid better than the jellybean 4.2’s project butter. But sometimes apps crash on ios due to the small ram. Gn2 on the other hand is fluid but not as, compared to the ios’, but apps running don’t crash that very often.
      You must experience both devices before you can say one is the better device. Maximize the potentials of both devices and use it according to your specific needs.

  2. Avatar for raffi raffi says:

    bakit kaya ang barbaric mag-comment ng mga android users dito at ang babaw mag-rason ng mga iOS users. pwede bang gamitin nyo nalang yung OS na kung saan kayo mas comfortable? ganun lang naman kasimple eh, bakit kailangan pa mag away away? be mature! respect others opinions.

    • Avatar for Jimmy Jimmy says:

      Usually, iSheeps start the squabble. They become VERY insecure when new Android phones come with better features than their beloved iPhone.

  3. Avatar for myphone myphone says:

    Haha why u no love for myphone!!!!!!! haha only show love to foreign made devicessss!!!

    • Avatar for paul e. paul e. says:

      ummm… myphone isn’t locally made. rebranded lang po.

      so sorry to burst your bubble. ;)

  4. Avatar for fat internet guy fat internet guy says:

    brb gonna sell my iphone 5

  5. Avatar for Mikaela Mikaela says:

    Good review from Yuga as always.

  6. Avatar for Essy Essy says:

    I’m so sorry for this silly question… Could I use my iPhone 5’s nano sim on the S4? Does the S4 use the same sim size as the iPhone 5? Thanks!

    • Avatar for Kim Kim says:

      iPhone 5 uses Nanosim while S4 uses Microsim, you can use and microsim adapter for your nanosim so it will fit on your S4. :)

  7. Avatar for Yusuf Yusuf says:

    I’m getting this just because it has LTE.

  8. Avatar for Mitee Mitee says:

    HTC One > Xperia Z > S4

    • Avatar for Yusuf Yusuf says:

      Xperia Z? Why?

    • Avatar for Mitee Mitee says:

      somehow i feel like s4 was just an annual release. just for the sake of releasing something

      at least with the xperia z you could see they were trying for something(water proof, camera, music).

    • Avatar for Name: jayson Name: jayson says:

      hi mitee, have you compared experia z and gs4 side by side? coz speaking about the camera yes they are both 13mp but the z has some issues about the camera. i cant feel it is a 13mp and besides comapre to s4 it has a yellowish tint/filter when camera is turn on.

  9. Avatar for Marc Marc says:

    For me, HTC One over this.

  10. Avatar for CoolerTHANcool CoolerTHANcool says:

    Congratulation for yugatech team,., its been 5 months since mag start ako na yugatech nalang binabrowse ko website for info of whats new in our technology today,., xempre meron ding iba but different interest like motorcyclephilippines, mga groups for civil engr, etc,., this is my first comment here,., im currently using iphone 4s, (sa mga nagcocomment po jan pls dont hate me :) ) since sgs4 topic, and from ur review, i think its an outstanding phone if not the best,., if compare to my iphone, its already a fact that tech improvements are taking a great leap in innovations,., so il expect in coming months maluluma din ito,., ganun din nangyari sa iphone 4s, haha,., as for me, my iphone serves me well, everything is simple, and it still a phone nonetheless,.,

    More power to yugattech and congrats,.,

  11. Avatar for Samsungot Samsungot says:

    Mas maganda pa din ang iPhone ko jan. Plastic lang yan, eh yun sa akin aluminium. Mas magaganda pa ang apps sa iOS. Gaya gaya pa lagi ang Samsung sa Apple.

    • Avatar for Pendong Pendong says:

      Aluminum aluminum kapa dyan nag bebend naman wahahahah… Try mo Google iPhone 5 bend… Heto pa video mo… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7_AS_9z0IU&feature=player_embedded

  12. Avatar for red red says:

    sa omega hd ako… can’t afford the g4. :)

  13. Avatar for Samsungot Samsungot says:

    Mas maganda pa din ang iPhone 5 ko jan. Plastic lang yan, eh yun iPhone 5 ko aluminium. Mas magaganda pa ang apps sa iOS. Gaya gaya pa lagi ang Samsung sa Apple.

    • Avatar for Brian Brian says:

      Gaya-gaya? Di mo alam na ang ginagamit na screen ng iPhone ay gawa ng Samsung? Haha!

    • Avatar for brun: brun: says:

      Burn!!!!!!!!!!! some of your iphone components is made by samsung so Iphone is a Samsung adapted child hahaha

    • Avatar for SamsungAllTheWay SamsungAllTheWay says:

      d mo alam ung chip ng iphone mo gawa ng Samsung hahahaha. eh kasi, mas superior tlaga ang samsung.

    • Avatar for Pendong Pendong says:

      Pinagmamalaki mo aluminum na iPhone 5? lahat ng bagay kahit bakal pa yan nasa gumagamit lang minsan factory defect talaga… Heto aluminum mo nag bend wahahahhaha…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7_AS_9z0IU&feature=player_embedded

    • Avatar for jayson jayson says:

      Hi, alam mo bang nilampaso ng S4 ko ang iphone5 mo sa lahat ng benchmark apps sa market. ows sorry, ip5 cant even beat htc one and z10 when it comes to performance. pero I’ll agree with you in one thing, maganda talaga ang built ng ip5 kasi aluminum sya. pero casing lang yan anung magagawa nyan? hahaha. solid s4 user!!! super satisfied ako sa octacore version!!!!

    • Avatar for Mae Mae says:

      lol funny comments. :D I had an iphone 5 before yung aluminum bilis magfade at magka dents. i switched to S4 :)

  14. Avatar for dj dj says:

    Merun n kaya mga demo units we can play with at samsung mobile stores? Best to see this in person and see if it really lives up to the hype.:-). When kaya?

    • Avatar for Glenn Glenn says:

      punta ka sa globe store, me naka display na silang s4 dun, ive tried one super smooth sya pero wala pang mga games na pwede mong i test since walang account na naka setup :D

  15. Avatar for Yewyew Yewyew says:

    Grabe yung ganda ng specs nito… Sa specs talagang taob si iPhone5 dito, pero sa itsura mas gusto ko BBZ10. Para naman sa nagsasabing boring ang iphone/iOS siguro di pa kayo nakagamit ng jailbroken iOS device, tons of tweaks pra mamaximize paggamit (thinking of “activator, springtomize, bbsetting”), alam yan ng mga naka iphone na nagjailbreak at marunong gumamit ng cydia hahaha. Ung iba kc ang alam kaya lng nagjailbreak para ung paid apps libre, boring talaga yun. Pero pag alam mo na gamitin ang cydia sobrang daming pedeng gawin sa iOS.. Kailangan mo nga lng i-jailbreak hahaha… Btw i have both android and iOS device.

  16. Avatar for Jesicca Jesicca says:

    Most of celebs are using iPhone. So bading si Bradd Pitt. What a conclusion guys. Ang dami palang bading. JT, Dingdong Dantes nako look at teitter sino nagtwrtweet using their iPhone. Hala halos lahat bading.

    • Avatar for Optimus G2 Optimus G2 says:

      NO QUESTION SA I-PHONE5 its okay, pewede sa lalaki, at pwede sa babae at bading pero ang probelama OVER PRICING lng ksi binabawi nila ang billion na pera na ginagastos sa world wide advertisement…

      maganda ang i-phones kasi LG ‘s true hd ips + display ang gamitn nila na tinawag nilang “RETINA DISPLAY” its actually made by LG-DISPLAY…

      AT IN FAIRNESS MAGANDA RIN DESIGN NG I-PHONE5.
      PARANG inspired by LG’S PRADA lng ah…

      i love LG & APPLE
      I LOVE OPTIMUS G & I-PHONE5.

    • Avatar for isklamowsyon isklamowsyon says:

      @jessica,ang sabi ko “pata sa kin” opinyon ko yun baka naman babae ka na mukhang bading? hahaha palagay ko pag foreigner ok lang iphone carry nya,pero pag pinoy? trying hard eh,bakla sa panigin ko,yun lang.

    • Avatar for sago sago says:

      Bading ho yan na nagpapanggap na macho para masabing lalaki.

  17. Avatar for dj dj says:

    Who has better display? Htc butterfly or samsung s4? Coz between butterfly and experia z I find the butterfly display more stunning, so wondering if s4 can beat the butterfly’s display?

    • Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

      Samsung Amoleds are not for everybody, may pros and cons yan…like hindi “paper white” ang pag render ng white web pages kundi warm yellow/ish… too contrasty din sa HD videos (which is bad) dahil natatabunan yung mga details kung minsan

      That being said, when viewing pictures off the web or reading pdf magazines, I prefer the warm look and deep jet blacks of of Amoleds

      Horses for courses, kanya kanyang specialty lang yan

    • Avatar for Kel101 Kel101 says:

      @abuzalzal, agree with that statement regarding to the AMOLED screen, but I think there is now an option to tune down the contrast to a more realistic color.

  18. Avatar for AvidReader AvidReader says:

    Nice review sir abe.

    May I suggest that you add playback performance of 720p and 1080p Hi10p (10-bit) files in your video test to see how much newer handsets can handle.

  19. Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

    Boss yuga…anong klaseng video codec at anong resolution yung video file na na play?

    You should’ve tested both 720p and 1080p para okey

  20. Avatar for Albert Albert says:

    I want one, but I’m also waiting for Google/Motorola, let’s see what they can come up with.

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