The Samsung Galaxy S4. March 14th Announcement.

[Anduril]

Hands on. Looks like it's actually better for those who aren't a fan of the plastic. Still polycarbonate but better final construction on the device.

[rubecube]

So how does it compare to the One specs wise?

[renny]

I'm very disappointed in the design of the phone. Samsung had almost a year do develop a different design... instead they just rehashed the S3... I know it's slightly more rectangular, but by and large you wouldn't be able to tell the difference at first glance.

[Rathji]

Why does a design have to be different? Did you want a circular or triangular phone?

They just sold an insane number of phones with nearly this same design, why would you expect they would change it drastically?

[Anduril]

And

Originally Posted by rubecube

So how does it compare to the One specs wise?

HTC One
Samsung S4

137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm, 143g, 4.7 inch with LCD3, Gorilla Glass 2
136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm, 130g, 49.9 inch with Super AMOLED HD (Pentile) Gorilla Glass 3

Snapdragon 600 Quadcore @ 1.6Ghz, 2200mAh battery
Snapdragon 600 Quadcore @ 1.9Ghz (NA), 2600mAh battery

After that, most of the things are a wash like camera features and individual pros and cons like front facing speakers for the One and microSD for the S4. It's also a bit impressive to see companies continue to push the envelope on phone size though as usual... A bigger battery would be more important. For another comparison, the Note 2 has these dimensions :

151.1 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm, 183g, 5.5 inch

Originally Posted by Rathji

Why does a design have to be different? Did you want a circular or triangular phone?

They just sold an insane number of phones with nearly this same design, why would you expect they would change it drastically?

Can't agree with this enough. Samsung had no reason to change things drastically. The other struggling Android companies do. Judging by how the keynote launch went, we don't want Samsung to be TOO creative...


Edit: looks like Swiftkey is going to come native on the S4.
We are very pleased and proud to say "Yes, SwiftKey software is on the Samsung Galaxy S4" swiftkey.net/en/blog/yes-swiftkey-software-is-on-the-samsung-galaxy-s4/

[renny]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Why does a design have to be different? Did you want a circular or triangular phone?

They just sold an insane number of phones with nearly this same design, why would you expect they would change it drastically?

That is the best selling phone of all time at over 250 million units sold worldwide. By your logic, we should all still be using phones that look like that.

I'm not asking for a triangular or a circular phone, that's just daft. I think that asking them to change even the materials of construction isn't too extreme. The phone looks exactly the same, at first glance you wouldn't even be able to tell them apart.

[Thor]

Its the Iphone way, slight updates and slight body changes. In fact most phones go this route, but because there was such giant leaps from S1 to S2 to S3 everyone expects that to continue.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

If they had called it the Galaxy S3S it would have gotten everyone mentally prepared for what was coming....

[Brannigans Law]

i can't wait to order this puppy! i just wish the UI was a white background not black. black feels cheap, low rent to me.

[burn_this_city]

I can't say I'm surprised, the way people ripped on the iPhone 5 for not much changing is kind of funny now. I don't think we can expect anything but incremental upgrades for the next while.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Why does a design have to be different? Did you want a circular or triangular phone?

They just sold an insane number of phones with nearly this same design, why would you expect they would change it drastically?

While I don't think we need radical designs each year just for the sake of it, I think it's a nice change and you don't want to get stale.

Google is lucky with their Nexus lines, having different companies switching it up so often brings back differently designed phones.

Here's that line of phones and how they've altered year to year, the last one being the best one yet, the Nexus 4.
http://www.androidcentral.com/look-h...-phone-program
It was a big shift this year to the Nexus for from Samsung's last two plastic ones. Even going from the Nexus S to the Galaxy Nexus was a different designs.

Not saying they need to do it each year out but it's bad to go stale.

They need to design out that ugly home button anyways.

[HotHotHeat]

From an innovation perspective, Samsung is proving to be a complete disaster. They were effective in catching Apple in terms the overall technology of a smartphone, but without a leash to holdon to they clearly don't know where to go next. The features this phone bring are the equivalent to Willy Wonka's flavor changing bubblegum. Cool feature, what's the benefit?

More broadly, the presentation shows Samsung's belief that they are strictly driven by what will make them the most money, and despite having directly stated it dozens of times during the keynote, have no idea what people want out of a phone beyond what they can pull from other industry leaders.

The BEST part of the keynote, however, was that they failed to involve a single partner company, despite the fact that the phone wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Google's open sourced Android. Nope. All Samsung, all the time. Are you seeing the irony yet? What's the single largest criticism of an iPhone from Android users? Closed off experience, Apple telling you what you want. The entire 50 minute disaster I just witnessed was Samsung doing that the entire time, only with cheesy actors and an even worse script.

My point is that Samsung just made the final step in becoming the company they have spent $400 million in the last year trying to separate themselves from. If the reason Android is better than iOS is because of the tinkering and open-sourced OS, nothing Samsung is doing should make this phone attractive to people. Delayed software updates, bogged down Samsung apps that try to take the place of Google stock apps, and at every turn you'll have to explain to people what features the S4 has that made it a 'must own' device.

Remember the commercial earlier this year that made fun of Apple moving the headphone jack to the bottom of the iPhone? Why start that conversation if you know the next device you're releasing is virtually the same phone as the one a year ago?

The 440 PPI is an accomplishment, sure, but what's the benefit vs. a 300 PPI screen when you can't discern the pixels either way?

AC WiFi was a good step, but hardly a realistic advantage over N on a phone with LTE.

But hey, those are two things owners of the phone can use to win arguments against iPhone using friends as they decide where they want to move the clock widget to, or which Facebook album they want scrolling in the corner of their homescreen.

Apple users are too busy actually using their phones to notice, to be honest.

The Nexus line is increasingly becoming the only Android hardware worth owning. Google seems to have recognized hardware makers don't have the user experience at heart when designing phones, and good on them for it.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Troll level - Alpha

[Senator Clay Davis]

Yeah that was some solid trolling by HHH. Not sure I'd say its Alpha level since its a little too obvious. 8.5/10 for me, work on being more subtle and avoid mentioning Apple so many times.

[MickMcGeough]

Thinking HTC has to be reasonably happy about this.

[HotHotHeat]

Trolling implies I'm looking for an argument. I'm not. I laid out my opinion of what Samsung announced. Fairly arrogant bunch in these threads these days.

[HotHotHeat]

Maybe we should make a rule that you have to pledge your allegiance to the brand being discussed in a thread before making a contribution.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Trolling implies I'm looking for an argument. I'm not. I laid out my opinion of what Samsung announced. Fairly arrogant bunch in these threads these days.

It's only trolling if its an iPhone user in an Android thread, never the other way around.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Trolling implies I'm looking for an argument. I'm not. I laid out my opinion of what Samsung announced. Fairly arrogant bunch in these threads these days.

Nope, you were doing pretty good but you just couldn't help yourself with this little bit at the end.

But hey, those are two things owners of the phone can use to win arguments against iPhone using friends as they decide where they want to move the clock widget to, or which Facebook album they want scrolling in the corner of their homescreen.

Apple users are too busy actually using their phones to notice, to be honest

"I'm too busy to notice the things I just noticed"

I literally chuckled man, good job.

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

It's only trolling if its an iPhone user in an Android thread, never the other way around.

Nope, that's trolling too. Take it to the iPhone vs Android thread that was created to curb it.

[Anduril]

Kind of a poor extension of his logic considering the Nokia phones slowly stayed the same for 3 plus years with slight modifications overtime, with other competitors launching quirky and more unique devices/technology to stand out. Nokia/BlackBerry would have continued to dominate with the same phones were it no for Apple releasing a well made, finished touchscreen product (revolutionary!)

Best way to look at the S4 is that Samsung isn't aiming for the S3/Note 2 users to upgrade. Just continue to hold their existing user base, and still release a highly competitive product. Just so happens that the other manufacturers have just stepped up their game to get people thinking about choices.

I can see why some people call it Apple-esque but I'd argue that alternating between revolutionary and evolutionary every year instead of releasing a slight upgrade in 6 months makes more sense when you're in a position like Samsung is.