So I got my Verizon Galaxy S4 the day after the (late) launch day. I wanted something new, exciting, nice, and with the potential to last a couple years. If you want to know my full smart phone story, it's in the lounge area. It is my first Samsung smart phone.
This is my summarized review and conclusion. This is based on my own experiences.
The GOOD:
I love the size and shape, for me it fits perfectly. I know this is subjective, but I wouldn't change anything about the physical design.
I love the screen. It's bright, beautiful, and very sharp. I wouldn't change that either.
It took me some time to get used to the physical home button coming from all capacitive buttons, but now I like it.
It's plenty fast to do what I want. I haven't experienced any lag caused by the processor, ram, or anything else that is supposed to run quickly.
Battery life is decent, I can go a day with light use and probably do just fine. I once went 13 hours and still had over 80% left, in a good coverage area, little use, no wifi.
Great camera! Macro still doesn't beat my old Razr Maxx, but overall it's solid. I've gotten good comments on my photography on it, and I'm nowhere near a professional.
THE BAD!:
I've had this phone replaced 3 times so far. First two times were because of the headphone jack not keeping things snapped in. This caused me not to be able to use headphones or audio cable until I replaced it. This was an issue from the day I got it, but I didn't realize it. It didn't matter what I plugged in either, I tried many different things and narrowed it down to the phone.
The third replacement was when my 2 day old refurbished replacement stopped reading my memory card. This was very annoying. I narrowed it down to the phone not the card after some work. This most recent replacement has none of these issues.
I've had a few notable issues with my phone and weird glitches. Once, while my phone was off AND in airplane mode, it came time to turn it on and there was a warning message on the screen that told me not to load a custom OS on my phone or it can damage it. Even if I had accidentally turned it on, I don't even know how to get it to say that. I've never rooted or tried to root any of my phones since my Original Droid.
Another instance was when I wasn't receiving data on it after leaving my apartment (no data and little voice coverage) even though I was a ways away, so I restarted it while in my car dock. It proceeded to boot into recovery, which, again I have no idea how to do if I tried.
Also, lately my alarm clock icon won't stay on the status bar on the top of my screen. The alarm still works fine, but this is odd to me. I haven't done any updates or changed anything that may affect that.
Other than those, there haven't been many notable annoying issues.
Something I wish my phone had was a FREE option to back up my phone (including pictures, video, music, etc) as a carbon copy right to my computer. I shouldn't need to find a special program (iTunes-ish) to easily load media on my phone. I don't even need wireless. I have a flippin cable at least! I think it should be easy like those online backup services, and it should come free for the phone. I don't see why using my computer as "cloud" storage for free would be too expensive for them to do. Loading well organized music on my android devices has always been a pain. DoubleTwist won't even recognize my device!
I don't think I should have hardware issues that are not my fault. Unless I drop it, get it wet, crack the screen, etc, it should last 3 years like my friends' ipoop4!
I promised a conclusion right? Well I am not thoroughly convinced that Samsung (Galaxy) smart phones are all they are cracked up to be. I will seriously reconsider this brand next time. However I am not willing to give up SD support until they no longer make phones that use them. What will I get next? Not sure. I may want to get something that has been around longer. Everyone I know who has an S3 has not had these issues. I'm almost tempted to buy one of those and sell this one.
This is my summarized review and conclusion. This is based on my own experiences.
The GOOD:
I love the size and shape, for me it fits perfectly. I know this is subjective, but I wouldn't change anything about the physical design.
I love the screen. It's bright, beautiful, and very sharp. I wouldn't change that either.
It took me some time to get used to the physical home button coming from all capacitive buttons, but now I like it.
It's plenty fast to do what I want. I haven't experienced any lag caused by the processor, ram, or anything else that is supposed to run quickly.
Battery life is decent, I can go a day with light use and probably do just fine. I once went 13 hours and still had over 80% left, in a good coverage area, little use, no wifi.
Great camera! Macro still doesn't beat my old Razr Maxx, but overall it's solid. I've gotten good comments on my photography on it, and I'm nowhere near a professional.
THE BAD!:
I've had this phone replaced 3 times so far. First two times were because of the headphone jack not keeping things snapped in. This caused me not to be able to use headphones or audio cable until I replaced it. This was an issue from the day I got it, but I didn't realize it. It didn't matter what I plugged in either, I tried many different things and narrowed it down to the phone.
The third replacement was when my 2 day old refurbished replacement stopped reading my memory card. This was very annoying. I narrowed it down to the phone not the card after some work. This most recent replacement has none of these issues.
I've had a few notable issues with my phone and weird glitches. Once, while my phone was off AND in airplane mode, it came time to turn it on and there was a warning message on the screen that told me not to load a custom OS on my phone or it can damage it. Even if I had accidentally turned it on, I don't even know how to get it to say that. I've never rooted or tried to root any of my phones since my Original Droid.
Another instance was when I wasn't receiving data on it after leaving my apartment (no data and little voice coverage) even though I was a ways away, so I restarted it while in my car dock. It proceeded to boot into recovery, which, again I have no idea how to do if I tried.
Also, lately my alarm clock icon won't stay on the status bar on the top of my screen. The alarm still works fine, but this is odd to me. I haven't done any updates or changed anything that may affect that.
Other than those, there haven't been many notable annoying issues.
Something I wish my phone had was a FREE option to back up my phone (including pictures, video, music, etc) as a carbon copy right to my computer. I shouldn't need to find a special program (iTunes-ish) to easily load media on my phone. I don't even need wireless. I have a flippin cable at least! I think it should be easy like those online backup services, and it should come free for the phone. I don't see why using my computer as "cloud" storage for free would be too expensive for them to do. Loading well organized music on my android devices has always been a pain. DoubleTwist won't even recognize my device!
I don't think I should have hardware issues that are not my fault. Unless I drop it, get it wet, crack the screen, etc, it should last 3 years like my friends' ipoop4!
I promised a conclusion right? Well I am not thoroughly convinced that Samsung (Galaxy) smart phones are all they are cracked up to be. I will seriously reconsider this brand next time. However I am not willing to give up SD support until they no longer make phones that use them. What will I get next? Not sure. I may want to get something that has been around longer. Everyone I know who has an S3 has not had these issues. I'm almost tempted to buy one of those and sell this one.
