The Samsung Galaxy S4. March 14th Announcement.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by puckluck2

The grass isn't always greener...

Contemplating going back to my iphone as the S4 isn't really for me. I like a simple phone where it doesn't take a masters degree to figure out how to use. The size, the lack of flash player, the sensitivity of the screen (or lack thereof) are all turn offs. You have to press too many buttons to do simple tasks.

I thought that Apple was in trouble but after using the s4 I can see why they won't be. For a simple user like me, the iphone is what works best. Surfing CP on the S4 is a pain in the butt because I have to zoom and press on the screen a couple times before it clicks on what I want to click.

S4 is a "better" phone, but way too complicated and a hassle for the simple user I am. I can see why a lot of people like Samsung over Apple, and I'm really not a big fan of Apple but the iphone is much easier to use for me.

TSN videos don't play and neither do NHL.com videos which I use frequently on the iphone.

I disagree with the statement that android is harder to us than ios. If you dont want to custimie anything you dont have to and it runs about the same as ios. Yes it runs differently from ios but to a brand new user learning the basics of each would be about equal. Since you are already familiar with ios you see differences as problems. This would be the same regardless of which direction you are going from.

[Galakanokis]

My wife uses an Android and has zero issues with it. This is a women that has trouble with the garage door opener. I don't know what these extra button pushes are you are referring to that cause so much pain? The status bar quick settings and pull down quick tiles are great. Takes 30 seconds to set them up and away you go, everything right at your fingertips.

As far as using a different browser why is that not a fix? Chrome, Dolphin Firefox all work very well but I think only Dolphin supports flash out of the gate. Boat might but can't remember. Just set the new browser as default and away you go, easy peasy.

My sister-in-law and her dumbass, er husband, still have no idea how to use their iPhone after two years. They asked me an honest question on Wednesday...what would you use maps on your phone for?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Galakanokis

As far as using a different browser why is that not a fix? Chrome, Dolphin Firefox all work very well but I think only Dolphin supports flash out of the gate. Boat might but can't remember. Just set the new browser as default and away you go, easy peasy.

Boat might be the best mobile browser I've ever used. I can't stand Safari.

[Brannigans Law]

Just things on the top of my head that aren't as easy and out of box functional on an Android as they are on apple:
1) Music player. The Droid mp3 player is not nearly as good as the player on iphones. ive tried maybe a dozen on the play store and none are as good. the only one that comes close is doubletwist and it looks cheap and tacky by comparison.
2) getting music on the device. With iTunes and your iphone its fast, it syncs perfectly, and gives you lost of options like compressing on the fly as you put mp3s to your player, volume adjustments and levelling, etc. On a droid your drag and dropping your whole library. Clunky by comparison.
3)Setting up a google account is faster and easier on iphone. weird. one advantage some droids have is syncing photos from google... im not counting this though because phones like the HTC One dont let you use this photos for anything. And other devices access it via picasa.... its weird how something so uniform and on google comes in different ways on different droids.
4)Most apps ive used on both an android and iphone are better on iphone. they're sharper, better looking, and updated more often to the latest versions.

We have too much choice now, so all these ridiculous things I'm nit picking are kinda stupid. But thats where we are now in the world of phones. Android BB Windows and Apple.. and all sorts of phones from there to chose from. For my money the iPhone is the best for people who dont want to fiddle. Android for those that do. Windows for old people and blackberry for people who cant stop living in the past

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Brannigans Law

2) getting music on the device. With iTunes and your iphone its fast, it syncs perfectly, and gives you lost of options like compressing on the fly as you put mp3s to your player, volume adjustments and levelling, etc. On a droid your drag and dropping your whole library. Clunky by comparison.

I dunno, that sounds like an advantage for Android phones if you ask me. I'd rather iTunes leave my music alone, as I've already set it up the way I want!

[Brannigans Law]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

I dunno, that sounds like an advantage for Android phones if you ask me. I'd rather iTunes leave my music alone, as I've already set it up the way I want!

I use itunes to set my album art and name Mp3s and assign artsits etc. So why woulnd't i want itunes to auto sync?

[Azure]

iTunes tends to make a complete mess of my music.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Brannigans Law

I use itunes to set my album art and name Mp3s and assign artsits etc. So why woulnd't i want itunes to auto sync?

I just add my music to my S3, run n7player, and it does all of that for me just as easily as iTunes done. I like the interface of n7 waaaay better, too.

I agree about DoubleTwist though. I purchased AirSync and have had nothing but trouble trying to get it to work.

[Galakanokis]

I dislike itunes immensely. I used it to sync a whack of music to my new touch and half of the songs were garbled and crappy, would play for a few seconds and skip to the next. Used syncios and everything went fine. have no idea what happened but with itunes it was random what songs would load poorly.

Had a similar issue trying to load songs into iTunes on my laptop. Some songs would load no issues whatsoever and others would not. Still have no idea why they won't load as I had them in there before.

[opendoor]

iTunes can have as much or as little control as you want it to have over your music. I just have it set to let me manage my music manually and I can have whatever kind of directory structure and file naming conventions I want. It's definitely not perfect, but every other music manager and player I've tried has had enough issues to keep me from switching.

And I agree, music management on Android is a bit of a mess, at least in my case where I'm using a Mac and a Nexus 4 without an SD card slot. Google Music would be great but I haven't been too impressed with the app itself and if you sync songs from the cloud they're unavailable to use in any other music app because they're buried and inaccessible.

I wouldn't mind dragging music over manually (it's what I used to do with iTunes because I have way more music than would ever fit on my iPhone) but from a Mac you have to use Android File Transfer which only works with my Nexus 4 about 25% of the time. I've done wireless transfers as well, but using a web browser based interface to manage thousands of files is hardly my idea of seamless.

And probably the biggest pain is if your library contains high bit rate or lossless stuff but you want smaller files for your phone. I looked for an automated way to do what iTunes does where it downsamples as it transfers but came up with nothing. So I had to convert everything to lower bit rate manually and now I basically have a clone of my music folder taking up 12GB on my computer's hard drive. Again, far from ideal.

I'm willing to live with all that because I like other things about Android and the Nexus devices, but Google really could stand to spruce up the usability of an OS that still feels like a work in progress.

[Diemenz]

What's the word on battery life on the S4?

I have an unlocked iPhone 5 but I'm looking to switch over to the S4 as I am a guy who likes to constantly be tweaking and android fits that bill.

[Esoteric]

Originally Posted by Diemenz

What's the word on battery life on the S4?

I have an unlocked iPhone 5 but I'm looking to switch over to the S4 as I am a guy who likes to constantly be tweaking and android fits that bill.

Same as other Android phones I've had - generally have to charge it by the time I go to sleep. I use it pretty heavily as well on my commute (~2 hours per day).

[Hack&Lube]

We have a couple S4s for corporate testing. The eye/head tracking is pretty gimmicky and unreliable as to when it locks on, same with the air scrolling (hover your hand above the screen) from what I saw. It's not smooth and intuitive and it loses tracking all the time and has to re-lock on unless we are doing something wrong.

[Gravitykillr]

Has anyone else who had this phone had issue's with the battery not charging properly? I've had mine for less than 2 weeks and it was fine up until yesterday. When I got home I plugged it in like I usually do and it was 42% and 3 hours later it was up to 48%, I figured maybe the plug I had it in was wonky so I switched it up and went to bed around 11:00 and when I woke up at 7:00 it was at 76%. I know it's supposed to be slower at charging but that just seems extremely slow before yesterday I was able to charge the phone in maybe 2.5 hours fully if not less.

[Thor]

Holy crap, Galaxy MEGA and Galaxy Zoom camera phone:

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/m...GT-I9205ZKABTU

Mega is 6.4" screen!



and "It offers the best of a smartphone and a high-end compact camera, with 10x Optical Zoom, 16 Megapixel CMOS Sensor, OIS and Xenon Flash, as well as the latest Galaxy S4 technology."

[Anduril]

The Mega is certainly big but just a middle of the line device. The Xperia ZU looks to be the biggest, baddest and thinnest device out there in Q3.
http://www.zdnet.com/sony-announces-...q3-7000017268/

[Thor]

I just wonder how the battery will be on such a large and sexy display.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Thor

I just wonder how the battery will be on such a large and sexy display.

Well bigger device = bigger battery. The battery life on a Galaxy Note 2 is far better than on an S3

[Stay Golden]

I have both a S4 for personal and an i5 for work.
No complaints for battery life. S4 has a superior camera and the effects are slick no question about it.
If you are playing music i would recommend taking the charger though but that is to be expected.
I have over 300 songs stored.

[Anduril]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Well bigger device = bigger battery. The battery life on a Galaxy Note 2 is far better than on an S3

At the same time the Note 2 has a 720p, 5.5"screen. How the Xperia ZU will fair with a similar sized battery despite a larger 1080p screen.