It may not be moments after the phone is announced, but I lastly have a overview unit of the Samsung Galaxy S4. I’ll be posting a more considered evaluate in two or three weeks time, so this text will concentrate on my experiences of the Galaxy S4 as it comes out the field, and in the first day of use.I think this is an important part of the experience. After the advertising, consumers have a very short time in store to assess a phone, but have the confidence they have the cooling off period that lets them return the handset after a day or so using the device. Delivering a good out the box experience is as important as packing in lots of extra apps and functionality.
The packaging (at least here in the UK) gives the handset a natural feel, looking like a wooden box, with false wood grain. It is, in fact, cardboard. Already the Galaxy S4 is pulling a bit of a switch on you. Inside the wood/natural colouring continues in the internal tray and introductory booklets.
And then there’s the Galaxy S4 itself, sitting on top of the box with its five inch 1080p screen. I think this is the biggest initial selling point. It’s a big screen that takes up most of the device, it has some wonderful viewing angles, and it’s bright with very vivid colours. Assuming that the in store has a working unit, the screen could sell the device on its own.
By reducing the bezel around the screen, I found it possible to comfortably hold the Galaxy S4 in my hand, but the physical size means that one handed operation is pretty much out of the question. I can reach some of the controls with the thumb on my right hand, but to do anything meaningful I needed to use my other hand. This is the trade off that comes from a larger screened device. Ask me again in two weeks if it’s one that works or not.
What doesn’t work for me is the back of the device. It’s a flimsy sheet of injection moulded plastic, held in place by some plastic clips, with a hunk of plastic carved out to make a speaker grilled and a bump of plastic to lift it up off the table.
I think Samsung forgot that this is a £500/$600 device and decided to go for the cheapest possible material at the rear of the device, It feels tacky, it feels wrong, and I know most people will pick up the handset at a subsidised price, but just as I love the screen on the front, I find the quality of materials used for the rear of the S4 to be something that I can easily hate.
Construction materials aside, the Galaxy S4′s weight, and especially its thin profile make it a compelling device to hold in wonder. Knowing what it can do it should be heavier. Knowing what’s inside and it should be thicker. But it’s not. All the components have been placed inside to give it as tight a profile as possible. This is a phone that wants to be shown off.
I also like that you have the choice to set up a drop box account now as well, and if you do you get a bonus storage package for two years on the cloud based service.
There is a dizzying array of settings in the Galaxy S4 – you can choose from 20 different toggle buttons to run along the top of the settings bar, and you have four tabs to set up almost everyone on the device. I suspect many people will simply leave the defaults in place, because it is overwhelming the options you can play with. That is a strength of Android, but it’s also the weakness.
It also leaves you with a feeling that you’ve missed an option when you can’t find it – I needed to Google to make sure the handset could not be used as a mass storage device over USB for easy connection to any computer.
The apps pre-populated to the home screens and widgets are almost all Samsung apps. The email client is not Gmail (but you can add that later if you wish), the Browser is Samsung’s own Browser and not Chrome,
Countering that, all of these ‘first look’ apps are competent and get the job done. Pick up the Galaxy S4 as a new handset and you’ll feel at home with the apps that are easy to launch. Naturally you can install third party apps, and I headed straight away to pick up the WordPress client, the Amazon Kindle reader, and the MLB’s At Bat application – only then did I start to feel at home with the software. I’m going to explore Samsung’s ‘S’ apps in the later review.
Samsung’s on screen keyboard is a good keyboard. The auto correct function, offering you various word choices will invariably offer the correct choice of word even if you miss the keys a little but, but I still prefer the ‘swype’ like ability to draw a line around the letters and let the phone work out what is being typed. It’s faster than touching each key individually, and it gives you a fast input method that genuinely works.
One thing I do miss is having a dedicated camera button. It means leaving the camera on the home screen or the standby screen as an easily accessible icon – and then you need to tap the on-screen button to take the picture. I’d much rather have a shutter button to launch the app and take the picture.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is certainly one of the nicest Android phones I’ve used, and materials aside, the styling gives it a unique look and feel in the hand. It’s easy on the eye and the first day with it might not stretch its capabilities, but it eases the user into the handset and makes sure they can easily reach the core functions.
Much like a Toyota or a Ford, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is a workhorse phone. It has nice lines, it has all the specs you would expect in this price range, and it gets the job done. There are more handsets out there with a bit more flair, operating systems that have a better overall experience in terms of UI or apps, but the Galaxy S4 feels like a Swiss army knife. It’s brutally pretty, it’s going to sell by the crate load as the functional phone that does everything, and it’s going to be regarded as a workhorse handset.
It’s also going to be seen as a bit of a safe bet. The Galaxy brand name is well known, and appreciated. Buying a Galaxy S$ might not be the cutting edge thing to do, but you’ll get something that does the job without being too fancy or ostentatious.
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