Samsung Galaxy S4 released

This is a truly amazing piece of hardware, Amir. Take a look at this:



Note that the S4 is almost 1mm shorter than the S3, AND it is 1.1mm thinner. Within this smaller and thinner package, they have crammed a physically larger screen (5" vs. 4.8") with a higher resolution, a much larger battery, and a faster CPU. Depending on the market, the buyer will either get a 1.8GHz clocked Snapdragon (probably a Snapdragon 600?) or an eight core Exynos 5. Benchmarks on other phones have already shown the Snapdragon 600 to completely and utterly trounce any other previous generation smartphone out there you would care to name, even fruity ones. It continues to offer SD card expansion and a removable battery, which can now be charged wirelessly. All this, and they have kept the weight the same as the S3 (130g).

However the phone does continue Samsung's ugly styling and all plastic construction. I will reserve judgement on the build quality until I actually hold one, but if it is the same as the S3 it will be a definite no for me.

This is a tremendously engineered phone. I can appreciate it at an intellectual level, just not at an aesthetic one. I don't think I will buy one ... HTC One for me this year i'm afraid.

They had to push for specs, as Android is much more resource wasting than iOS.

iPhone may have a lower spec processor and still works much smoother and as a result gives the customer a better user experience.

I'm also not sure about the HD display, as 440ppi far beyond perception treshold of human eye (I believe the limit is 300ppi) and only leads to increased load on system resources and higher power consumption.

IMO Samsung sould have rather worked on the display quality (brightnes and contrast) and a precision with which the display is able to sense and track your finger, as that is where the iPhone has a clear advantage.

I'm not even talking about the poor design and build quality.

Disclaimer: Nokia E7 user.

I'm with you, I'd rather have a 4" screen with 300dpi than a 5" with 440dpi.
The HTC One is pretty slick, solidly built. And the screen is indeed impressive. From what I've seen, HTC's tacky UI is better than Samsung's extra-tacky UI, both laid on top of Android. If Android wasn't slow enough, these brands keep adding these flourishes that end up slowing down things further.
And all that software crap that Samsung demonstrated, it was either already on display in MWC 2013 (Barcelona) by Samsung or LG. Nothing new there. They just put all the junk they could think of in the same box.


alexandre

Investors Give Samsung Galaxy S4 Thumbs Down

By Ansuya Harjani | CNBC

While Samsung Electronics' (Korea Stock Exchange: 593-KR) latest iPhone challenger, the Galaxy S4 with its range of gimmicky features including motion tracking technology, was the talk of the day, investors sold off shares of the company on Friday following the launch of the highly-awaited gadget.
Shares of the world's largest smartphone maker declined 2.6 percent to 1.48 million won ($1,334) in Seoul, but analysts were not worried saying the market had already priced in the hype and a similar movement in the company's shares followed the launch of the Galaxy S3 last year, as well.

"This is selling on the news as most of the features were already highly anticipated. There wasn't much positive surprise. Most of it was leaked already - the screen size, processor, smart pause and eye scrolling - a few days ago," said Mark Newman, an analyst at Stanford Bernstein.
The Galaxy S4 sports a 5-inch screen, compared to the iPhone 5's 4-inch screen, and offers functions including 'Smart Scroll,' which enables users to scroll without touching the screen. It tracks the users' face to tell where they are looking.
The stock has had a positive run over the past one month in anticipation of the new product, and Friday's selloff could just be profit taking, said analysts.

Samsung's stock has risen 11 percent over the past six months compared to rival Apple's share price that has fallen 37 percent over the same period.
Ron Suh, equity research associate at Macquarie, said that the "selloff will be short-lived and the shares should bounce back up."
He added that his 12-month target for Samsung's stock price to hit 2.3 million won remains in place, which is an upside of 55 percent from current levels.
Another reason why analysts are not concerned about the dip in the share price is because expectations for sales of the new smartphone are running high. Macquarie, for example, is forecasting Galaxy S4 sales to average 20 million per quarter in 2013, compared to around 15 million for the Galaxy S3 last quarter.

Tech experts believe Samsung's latest offering, which will go on sale in April, will offer fierce competition for rival Apple.
"You can argue the S3 has already done some damage to Apple, it was a very successful device, and the S4 is probably going to follow in its steps," said Van L. Baker, research vice president, mobility at Gartner.
Market research firm IDC on Friday said that Galaxy S4 has the potential to outsell the next generation of iPhone, Dow Jones reported.
With the Apple's iPhone 5S expected to launch in June or July, Samsung will also enjoy an exclusive period of several months with minimal competition in the high-end segment, IDC said.
Samsung's global smartphone market share stood at 35 percent in the third quarter of 2012, double that of Apple's at 17 percent.

I suppose price is contract dependent.

amirm said:

That used to be the case but no longer.

Click to expand...

I would concur with this. If you have a new Android handset - any mid-tier phone made within the last year, there is no such thing as lag. OTOH my wife's iPhone 4 has just been upgraded to iOS 6.1. The thing lags like crazy. When it was new, it was nowhere near as slow as this. She suspects that Apple has deliberately crippled the performance of her phone to nudge her to upgrade. She is now thinking of moving to Android ... which will be a pity, since it's nice to have one iOS device at home so I can keep an eye on how much further behind they are lagging.

It's par for the course for any computer.

Looks like the S4 blows the iPhone 5 out of the water: http://www.redmondpie.com/galaxy-s4-benchmarks-are-in-twice-as-fast-as-iphone-5/