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[RANT] Are any of you disappointed with the Galaxy S4?

GalaxyNexus

Android Enthusiast
Nov 12, 2011
547
124
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Do any of you have absolutely no desire to pick up the Galaxy S4 after watching the live stream?

I for one have been pumped up about this launch for a long time. I was excited after seeing all of these leaked specs and how it was going to be even better than HTC One.

So I tuned into the live stream and saw the Galaxy S4 for the first time. A little bit of me died inside after seeing the Galaxy S4 looked like a replica of the S3. I wanted this to be the greatest thing yet but it just isn't (for me). If the Galaxy S4 looked like the HTC One it would be without a doubt the best phone on the planet.

I feel like Samsung was very conservative making the GS4 like the GS3- I feel like they're trying to be Apple. I know all the amazing specs and stuff along with the removable battery and that there's a micro-sd card slot.

I know that I'm not the only one disappointed in Samsung and there are probably a lot of people on AFs that's also a little upset. If this thread gets out of hand then I'll definitely be open to mods closing it, but can we please have a serious discussion about how we feel about the GS4?
 
As I said before, Samsung disappoints.

Hardware is same/not up to par.
Design is non-existant, they just rehashed.
Software is the same old thing.
Gimmicks seem to be filler for time during presentation.

The worst part was the hype behind the event and look how it turned out. So much backlash from fans/haters/and the media.
 
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How can you not love this phone?

1080p on 5 inch, 8 cores, 13mp, it's got the best spec on the market.

Display is pentile which ruins screen quality. The screen itself is already low on PPI compared to the HTC it is going up against.

8 cores in only SOME markets. Doubt anyone in the US is getting the 8 core S4 unless they import it.

13 MP = megapixels don't matter - the lens quality matters

The S4 loses the spec war vs Sony and HTC.
 
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As a phone/tech whore....Yea I'm disappointed! They just didn't swing for the fences with this one and went very conservative. But just because I'm bummed by what they unveiled, doesn't mean the faithful Sammy following feels the same way...I'm sure to people rocking a GS2 that this will be a nice upgrade.
 
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Display is pentile which ruins screen quality. The screen itself is already low on PPI compared to the HTC it is going up against.

8 cores in only SOME markets. Doubt anyone in the US is getting the 8 core S4 unless they import it.

13 MP = megapixels don't matter - the lens quality matters

The S4 loses the spec war vs Sony and HTC.

So your eye can see difference between 441 and 468 PPI? Wow... And it's not the same pentile screen used before. It's diamond-matrix sub-pixel layout which is similar in sub-pixel PPI as square RGB.

Other than build quality, I don't see how GS4 loses in internal spec war at all.
 
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This is a difficult question. The Snapdragon 600 would disappoint me, because other phones have it, and it isn't really more powerful than the Droid DNA aside from a faster clock speed, and it isn't true cortex a15.

However I was just planning on getting another GS3 for the time being anyway.

Plus samsung did some amazing stuff with the GS4 which I don't think people paid attention to.

1. The width of the phone went down from 70.6 to 69.8mm. This means the GS4 will be easier to hold than the GS4, if only slightly. People said the 5" screen would make it bigger or worse, Samsung made it better.

2. The battery is well sized, but the battery size isn't all they did. They made the phone 7.9mm thick. The GS3 was 8.6mm thick with a 2100mah battery. The GS4 is thinner, and has nearly a 25% bigger battery. This phone has a bigger battery than the droid razr hd and is thinner than it by .5mm. I bet they could make an extended 3300mah battery and make is as thick, or thinner than the droid razr maxx hd, in other words, this phone could be a new standard of battery capacity for size and thickness, or at least match the king of battery life phones.

3. The height stayed the same.

Overall the phone has shrunk or stayed the same while getting a bigger screen and battery. This is just amazing. The SoC is likely a disappointment as far as I'm concerned, but everything else is just awesome.

To those who don't like pentile, all I have to say is that at 800x480 on a 4" screen it looks crappy, but 720p on a 4.65-4.8" screen, it looks fine, I barely can see the pixels even trying to. 1080p, pentile or otherwise, at 5", is just fine. Far beyond what my eyes can see at least, and beyond what most people can see.
 
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This is a difficult question. The Snapdragon 600 would disappoint me, because other phones have it, and it isn't really more powerful than the Droid DNA aside from a faster clock speed, and it isn't true cortex a15.

However I was just planning on getting another GS3 for the time being anyway.

Plus samsung did some amazing stuff with the GS4 which I don't think people paid attention to.

1. The width of the phone went down from 70.6 to 69.8mm. This means the GS4 will be easier to hold than the GS4, if only slightly. People said the 5" screen would make it bigger or worse, Samsung made it better.

2. The battery is well sized, but the battery size isn't all they did. They made the phone 7.9mm thick. The GS3 was 8.6mm thick with a 2100mah battery. The GS4 is thinner, and has nearly a 25% bigger battery. This phone has a bigger battery than the droid razr hd and is thinner than it by .5mm. I bet they could make an extended 3300mah battery and make is as thick, or thinner than the droid razr maxx hd, in other words, this phone could be a new standard of battery capacity for size and thickness, or at least match the king of battery life phones.

3. The height stayed the same.

Overall the phone has shrunk or stayed the same while getting a bigger screen and battery. This is just amazing. The SoC is likely a disappointment as far as I'm concerned, but everything else is just awesome.

To those who don't like pentile, all I have to say is that at 800x480 on a 4" screen it looks crappy, but 720p on a 4.65-4.8" screen, it looks fine, I barely can see the pixels even trying to. 1080p, pentile or otherwise, at 5", is just fine. Far beyond what my eyes can see at least, and beyond what most people can see.

It isn't the internals that bug me, it's the exterior look and the fact that Samsung didn't bother to change ANY of it. We pretty much got what we expected in terms of specs which is awesome. But liked I said earlier had the Galaxy S4 had the looks of the HTC One it would be the best thing ever.
 
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It isn't the internals that bug me, it's the exterior look and the fact that Samsung didn't bother to change ANY of it. We pretty much got what we expected in terms of specs which is awesome. But liked I said earlier had the Galaxy S4 had the looks of the HTC One it would be the best thing ever.

I'm not sure how they could have changed the appearance to make it better, the speaker on the front and mic and light sensor and notification light and screen all go in the same spot on all phones, for the most part. They moved the flash and speaker on the back around, but none of that really matters overall. In design samsung has always liked fairly rounded edges, only the gs2 and custom phones make for specific carriers had different designs.

They did change the front styling from that brushed look to a cool carbon fiber looking thing. I think that's cool, and the backplate supposedly has a different style, though I'd personally prefer something not shiny and annoying, aftermarket backplates are a dime a dozen, and most people put their phones in cases anyway. Very little of phone design matters overall.

The only way I can see samsung changing the design in a way that would get more sales, is using something like metal or carbon fiber, or some high end product in the body or backplate. most metals would make it heavier though, the gs4 actually got lighter, which is impressive.

Also why would samsung change something that sells so damn well?
 
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It isn't the internals that bug me, it's the exterior look and the fact that Samsung didn't bother to change ANY of it. We pretty much got what we expected in terms of specs which is awesome. But liked I said earlier had the Galaxy S4 had the looks of the HTC One it would be the best thing ever.

So you buy a phone to look at it's outer shell?
 
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I'm not sure how they could have changed the appearance to make it better, the speaker on the front and mic and light sensor and notification light and screen all go in the same spot on all phones, for the most part. They moved the flash and speaker on the back around, but none of that really matters overall. In design samsung has always liked fairly rounded edges, only the gs2 and custom phones make for specific carriers had different designs.

They did change the front styling from that brushed look to a cool carbon fiber looking thing. I think that's cool, and the backplate supposedly has a different style, though I'd personally prefer something not shiny and annoying, aftermarket backplates are a dime a dozen, and most people put their phones in cases anyway. Very little of phone design matters overall.

The only way I can see samsung changing the design in a way that would get more sales, is using something like metal or carbon fiber, or some high end product in the body or backplate. most metals would make it heavier though, the gs4 actually got lighter, which is impressive.

Also why would samsung change something that sells so damn well?

How about getting rid of the physical home button?

How about using more premium materials?

How about looking towards creating a better user experience and doing something new and innovative instead of doing something you know that will work?

I feel like Samsung took the easy way out, like Apple.
 
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So you buy a phone to look at it's outer shell?

LOL... No, but I would like to see a refresh. I really don't like the look of the S3 and the physical home button combined with capacitive buttons.

Look at it this way:

Which shirt would you wear, 1 or 2?

1. A really really comfortable shirt but you don't like how it looks

2. A good looking shirt that is pretty comfortable.

I would wear shirt two.
 
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I was sort of disappointed.

The S4 is unfortunately just what the S3 should have been last year. Even with the great new hardware, it doesn't feel like a full evolution. Like the iPhone 4s was to the 4.

Everything was great EXCEPT for the look... Both the look of the phone & the look of the new TouchWiz UI greatly underwhelmed me...

Other than that, they totally delivered. But still, HTC One looks like the phone for me.
 
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LOL... No, but I would like to see a refresh. I really don't like the look of the S3 and the physical home button combined with capacitive buttons.

Look at it this way:

Which shirt would you wear, 1 or 2?

1. Say there's this really really comfortable shirt but you don't like how it looks

2. A good looking shirt that is pretty comfortable.

I would wear shirt two.

not a good analogy, because you can have many shirts, but probably only one smartphone. Therefore practicability and functionality is far more important for a phone than it's appearance.

Plus you can buy cases for your phone, which is like "shirts" for your phone.
 
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I'm not disappointed at all; Glove mode, got to love that in New England. I'm one of those case people so the lighter the materials a manufacturer uses the better. 64 GB micro SDXC compatibility is also a real plus. I can finally carry around my entire Music collection including the Christmas stuff and still have room for some DIVX movies.
 
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How about getting rid of the physical home button? To make it exactly the same as the other 'high end smart phones' that sold less than the S3? That would just be pointless? It works, obviously, or it wouldn't sell.

How about using more premium materials? For what purpose exactly? So it 'feels' more expensive? How exactly does this improve the user experience?

How about looking towards creating a better user experience and doing something new and innovative instead of doing something you know that will work? So for the end user Samsung have included 'nothing' new and came to the table with an S3 in an S4 shell then? Yes? No! They have innovated, aiming at the user experience, if you don't see that, then try adjusting your bifocals. Samsung have clearly out innovated every other manufacturer in the last 2 years. Otherwise their features wouldn't be getting copied by the likes of oh, HTC, surprise!

I feel like Samsung took the easy way out, like Apple. I feel like you need to see whats clearly there.

For anyone about to upgrade from a low-mid range phone, the S4 is the obvious choice.
 
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