I just don?t get the Samsung Galaxy S4, well I did get it but I returned it in just a few days.

[jameslaz]

I have been a loyal iPhone user having had every version since the iPhone 2 came out a few years back to my current iPhone 5. For the most part I have been very happy with my iPhones and most of my family including my wife all use a version. I love that they just work and there is very little that goes wrong. Seeing as how I love all the newest tech I still get the bug every now and then to make a major change to try the latest and greatest. The Samsung Galaxy S4 has been getting a lot of attention and the ads and tech specs make it seem like one very good, high tech phone. So a few days back I used my upgrade I had with ATT and went to my locals Fry?s Electronics and purchased a Galaxy S4 for $179. I got it home and was pleased to find the information in the box on how to transfer all my contacts, music, notes and other data form iTunes to my new Galaxy S4. It was quite painless and after a slight learning curve I found there version of the app store and found most of my favorite apps and started my make the phone mine. I loved the big bright screen and the phone seemed well made although not as well made as the iPhone. The plastic back did not do much for me. By the time I had most things set it was late so I set my morning alarm plugged it in to charge for the night. The next day I was off to work with my new high tech phone with high hopes for all the cool offerings it promised. I was on it at every break and I was amazed at all the options in the settings menus. I had read about some of the cool features such as air view and smart scroll and a bunch of others. Most seemed pretty cool but I had trouble getting any to work as easily as they did in the commercials I had seen. Still I was happy and spend my lunch hour playing on it and getting used to it. I added the battery percentage to the screen and that?s when I noticed I was down to under 35% on my battery. I had used it over 2 breaks and a few minutes in-between and about 30 minutes at lunch. I didn?t use it again until I was on my way home and by then it was under 25% battery remaining. After getting home and watching a couple if trailers on IMDB and just general use I was under 5% and had to charge. This seemed to be a lot of battery drain for not that much use. The next day after I had loaded 30 or so apps I noticed it seemed to be running slowly. Scroll windows were not smooth and just getting apps to load was becoming a hassle. On the second day by lunch with very little use I was under 30% battery. I did a search for Samsung Galaxy S4 battery life and what came up shocked me. 500+ articles on how to get your battery to last for a day and all included turning half the features of the phone off. So I buy the latest high tech phone and to get it to last a full day I have to turn off all the cool tech and have my screen brightness down so low it is dim. Funny none of the ads mention any of that. So I turn off Bluetooth, GPS, eye and hand gestures and dim my screen to less than half brightness and the battery almost lasted a day. It was still running slow and a bit jerky. I returned the Galaxy the next day and went back to my iPhone 5. I had everything turned on and the screen brightness turned up and the battery lasted all day with quite a lot to spare. So I will stick with the iPhone and give the next version a try. I really don?t get the appeal of the Galaxy if you can?t use it for a full day without turning half the features off and it slows down after installing a few apps. What is the appeal? The iPhone is an amazing device that deserves all the kudos it gets.

 

[Duvi]

I do not get that much battery life on my iPhone 5, like you do with my brightness up. In fact, I keep mine around 20% or less.

With the s4... I actually decided to skip, along with the htc one as I do not like Android, one bit.

Android devices have these high specs for a reason... even with those specs, I prefer the other 3 (iOS, BB and WP) over Android.

 

[anon(4698833)]

Not sure what was up with your Samsung phone, but the Galaxy S4 has been thrown up against the other phones on the market and has returned some pretty legit battery performance numbers against the iPhone 5 (and every other phone on the market for that matter). The larger chassis allows for a bigger battery setup. Your battery performance issues sound like an isolated incident, like many of the issues that people report here about the iPhone 5.

 

[finn5975]

I am assuming by your post that you did not enable developer options and turn the animations to 0? Once I disabled the gimmicks (I'm sorry, but things like eye scroll and eye pause are straight gimmicks) turned off animations (another unnecessary item) and switched from stock to nova launcher that S4 was snappy and smooth as any phone I've used. Battery life was great as well.

That said, I love my 5 and will stay true to it until perhaps the next release. Hopefully you gave up on the S4 for other reasons, because the ones I mentioned are fixable.

 

[Jrome.brooks]

You Might have to go back to iPhone my iPhone 5 gets 10 to 19 hours now with one charge and I'm happy

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I do not get that much battery life on my iPhone 5, like you do with my brightness up. In fact, I keep mine around 20% or less.

With the s4... I actually decided to skip, along with the htc one as I do not like Android, one bit.

Android devices have these high specs for a reason... even with those specs, I prefer the other 3 (iOS, BB and WP) over Android.

Man, 20%? lol

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I got it, as a phone enthusiast, for a couple of weeks. I could never go a whole
day using strictly that phone. No battery issues. Just a productivity problem. It
wasn't something I could just whip out and go do what I wanted to do as quickly
as I want to do like I've been accustomed to with my iPhone.

It also helps that developers don't have to work with a million different screen
sizes and specs to get their app working properly. I just like my $hit to work
and not be all hoping that a certain app is updated soon to fix a stupid problem
it has because the poor developer got screwed by some kinda API that doesn't
work well with the processor or something silly like that.

 

[bunjy]

I am assuming by your post that you did not enable developer options and turn the animations to 0? Once I disabled the gimmicks (I'm sorry, but things like eye scroll and eye pause are straight gimmicks) turned off animations (another unnecessary item) and switched from stock to nova launcher that S4 was snappy and smooth as any phone I've used. Battery life was great as well.

That said, I love my 5 and will stay true to it until perhaps the next release. Hopefully you gave up on the S4 for other reasons, because the ones I mentioned are fixable.

I think you're making the OP's point. You had to turn off all the hyped features, install a 3rd party launcher, etc. to get the device battery life in check. Should be able to turn that bad boy on as is with no problems.

 

[anon(4698833)]

I think you're making the OP's point. You had to turn off all the hyped features, install a 3rd party launcher, etc. to get the device battery life in check. Should be able to turn that bad boy on as is with no problems.

And that's where the Android premiere device trade off is...they're chalk full of fresh off the developer table features, but they don't necessarily improve the experience across the entirety of the phone. It's one reason why i love the iPhone, it may fall behind on new run features, and it may grab up the functionality of some of the android phone's a year or so after those hit the market, but when they come, they are polished and the phone retains functionality we expect. It's something that people who have never used an iPhone for a legitimate amount of time will never understand...we turn on our iPhone's, and it gives you a feature rich experience while also performing almost flawlessly.

Nothing is perfect...iPhone is close.

 

[anon5664829]

And that's where the Android premiere device trade off is...they're chalk full of fresh off the developer table features, but they don't necessarily improve the experience across the entirety of the phone. It's one reason why i love the iPhone, it may fall behind on new run features, and it may grab up the functionality of some of the android phone's a year or so after those hit the market, but when they come, they are polished and the phone retains functionality we expect. It's something that people who have never used an iPhone for a legitimate amount of time will never understand...we turn on our iPhone's, and it gives you a feature rich experience while also performing almost flawlessly.

Nothing is perfect...iPhone is close.

Meh, the Nexus 4 is also close.

 

[bunjy]

And that's where the Android premiere device trade off is...they're chalk full of fresh off the developer table features, but they don't necessarily improve the experience across the entirety of the phone. It's one reason why i love the iPhone, it may fall behind on new run features, and it may grab up the functionality of some of the android phone's a year or so after those hit the market, but when they come, they are polished and the phone retains functionality we expect. It's something that people who have never used an iPhone for a legitimate amount of time will never understand...we turn on our iPhone's, and it gives you a feature rich experience while also performing almost flawlessly.

Nothing is perfect...iPhone is close.

Exactly. That's been my experience. And I've used both BlackBerry and Android for significant periods of time.

 

[kataran]

Reason why I came to the iPhone 5 as my daily driver I wanted horse power and smooth shifting as well as getting decent gas mileage

Was tired of playing garage mechanic to get performance I just wAnt to turn the key and go


Sent from my iPhone 5

 

[Mr.Willie]

I don't understand how/why people call S4 latest and greatest. ( I get the latest part and yes I am being serious). It's not just this thread, but in others also, people mention all the features, and then in the end shut them off. So they are left with a thin plastic Android device. They keep them in their pocket ( instead of a holster or pouch) and then get surprised when their screen is cracked. They also only have 9 Gb of storage free.

In reference to the HTC One, which doesn't have a home button, has dual front speakers, Beats audio, 32 or 64Gb of storage (no need to manage SD cards) , and great battery life. Its aluminum construction is less prone to flex.

Is a five inch screen really that much better than a 4.7" ? Is the same CPU, overclocked by 200 MHz that much faster ?

Seriously, what gives ?

 

[anon(4698833)]

Meh, the Nexus 4 is also close.

Meh...nah.

Seriously, what gives ?

I don't think you saw anyone on this site (that wasn't a troll) telling anyone the Galaxy S4 is the "latest and greatest"...I personally find it lack luster as hell, along with most of the rest of the Android top end phones.

 

[Mr.Willie]

I don't think you saw anyone on this site (that wasn't a troll) telling anyone the Galaxy S4 is the "latest and greatest"...I personally find it lack luster as hell, along with most of the rest of the Android top end phones.

From the OP:

I still get the bug every now and then to make a major change to try the latest and greatest.

Then he states that he tried the S4.

I understand why people use iPhones and state that they're the greatest (this is typed on my iPad). I understand why they choose Andriod in general. I just don't get the Samsung part of it.

 

[mayconvert]

I have to agree with SeanHHRC. I had the S4 for 3 weeks. I did not turn off animations but I did turn off Eye gimmick, hand waiving gimmick, and I didn't use bluetooth.
I set the screen at 100% brightness, with auto brightness OFF and on Dynamic and I had Zero issues making it 20 hours on a single charge with 4 hours of screen time.

The issue I had with the S4 was it lagged like a sloth while browsing with the stock browser or Chrome. Apps ran like crap on the device. I am a starbucks junkie so I use the starbucks app for free coffee. The Android version logged me out 4 times in 3 weeks and deleted my CC info 3 times. No built in Visual Voicemail sucked. I had to have 3 email apps to get all of my email.
The latest Gmail app was horrible. and there was more but I think I blocked it from memory now that I am back to iPhone 5 and running smooth without lag.

The S4 5" screen and phone size was PERFECT IMO. But that screen wasn't worth ALL the trade offs. The S4 camera was awesome too.

I agree with whoever said, You shouldn't have to go into dev mode and turn off animations and install some 3rd party GUI just to get a phone to semi-work. That's is as stupid as it sounds.

 

[mayconvert]

Meh, the Nexus 4 is also close.

stock android is boring. I have to disagree there Chetan. Nexus still has android OS so all of android drawbacks are still present, even on a nexus.

 

[mayconvert]

Best android phone on the market is the LG Optimus G Pro but you can't convince a same-sung or HTC fan that it's true. It is AT&T only and the Monster 5.5" IPS display is almost impossible to use one handed.

I had the LG for 14 days before trying the S4. The LG did NOT have lag, came with 32GB out of the box (25GB was usable after OS), the GUI was clean.
The camera was as good as S4, although didn't have AS many options as the S4.
The LG IPS display is a beauty. nom nom nom. It's just too big.

If I had to go back to android today. I would grab the LG and laugh at shamesung owners. I know a lot of people that think the HTC one is all that and a bag a chips, its not.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

Best android phone on the market is the LG Optimus G Pro but you can't convince a same-sung or HTC fan that it's true. It is AT&T only and the Monster 5.5" IPS display is almost impossible to use one handed.

I had the LG for 14 days before trying the S4. The LG did NOT have lag, came with 32GB out of the box (25GB was usable after OS), the GUI was clean.
The camera was as good as S4, although didn't have AS many options as the S4.
The LG IPS display is a beauty. nom nom nom. It's just too big.

If I had to go back to android today. I would grab the LG and laugh at shamesung owners. I know a lot of people that think the HTC one is all that and a bag a chips, its not.

See, my issue with LG has never been the hardware, but the software. There's something about LG's skin on Android that drives me nuts. Although I hate TouchWiz even more.

 

[tlo07]

I have a Galaxy S4 and an iPhone 5 now. I have been going back and forth between the two, but lean more heavily towards the iPhone. I like the S4 a lot though, don't get me wrong. Its the first Android I've had that I could leave the iPhone for if I had to (although I think I would like the HTC One as well). I don't use the hand waving stuff or the smart pause-- only the smart stay that keeps the screen from timing out if you are looking at it. That is a very useful function and I don't put that in the gimmick category. I always leave my GPS on. I don't have to mess with my screen brightness. I don't have battery troubles. I actually have found myself at times at the end of the day still having 50% battery left. Its nice to have a big, beautiful screen to type on but the problem is when I need to stick that phone in my pocket that big, beautiful screen is now an annoyance. The sound quality, IMO, on the Galaxy is not as good as on my iPhone and that is incredibly important to me because I'm constantly using my iPhone for listening to music with headphones. Like I said, I lean more towards the iPhone but I am sure having a hard time parting company with the Galaxy. Performance-wise I really think the Androids have nearly closed the gap with iPhone lately.