Samsung's new Galaxy S 4: iPhone assassin or Android also-ran?

It's just too damn big!

I'm not sure I like this trend of monstrous sized phones. For me Apple has it absolutely spot on with the iPhone 5. I want something I can slip in my pocket and not even know it's there until I can feel a buzz from an event.

Gimmicky apps

Meh, are they going to roll out these apps/software features into the S3/Note 2 lines?

8 Cores?

Sure there's 8 cores but can they all be used?

From the way El Reg describes it in this article it sounds to me like it's 2 separate sets of 4 cores, when under minimal load the low power cores are used, and when under heavy load the beefier cores take over and the other 4 cores stop being used.

So the question is, at any point is this CPU actually 8 cores with 8 seperate processing threads, or is it just 4 that swap between high and low power versions?

I'm not familiar with the design of this CPU so perhaps someone else would care to weigh in.

Investors were that impressed that Samsung's share price dived 1.7%

Yes I like the gimmicks and gadgets of the samsung s3. im intrested in the s4 .Ive never been an iphone lover dont know why but I have always prefered android.

but for me the biggests selling point in future would be battery life. Give me a phone that last days not hours.

I use to love and still do my old Nokia 6310i. Boy did that battery last.

give me a samsung with a nice drop in mobile cradle like the old nokia 6310i had with ext ant connection

non of this fitting it in the dash clamp in car then plugging in power lead. Just drop in and go

give me a phone that can have external phone, wifi , gps ariels. that i can just drop in to its cradle and it starts to charge either via power lead or wirless charge i dont care.

Ipones have docking stations evening the galaxy tab have but not seen one for the phone.

I think its the aftermarket stuff that makes the iphone sell more. walk in to and high st phone shop and look at all the case covers and stuff for the ipone and you have an alladins cave of choice.

look at the samsung and you have a small choice in the corner. other wise i have to trawl the web for stuff

Things that appeal to me:

Corning Gorilla Glass 3 (My SII's screen recently cracked like the san andreas fault)

Full HD screen (I Like to watch movies whilst commuting)

More RAM and Faster CPU (I like to play games, again whilst commuting)

Apart from that it's all just bells and whistles.

The reason I choose Samsung over Apple now is simply on price. You have to pay to be a fanboi, not so much to be a Fandroid.

64 GB should be enough for anyone...

This is all going to be down to personal preference; I've just switched from a Desire S to a One X+ because I'm a fan of HTC sense and the different overlays that each manufacturer puts on Android mean that it'd be as much of a pain (IMO) to go from HTC to Samsung as to iOS.

What people also forget is the home ecosystem you build around your phone - Mrs foredeck is an iOS user and recently upgraded to a 4S rather than 5 because the very expensive iPhone dock/hi-fi we have won't take the new connector. Switching from iOS to Android (or iPhone 5) would mean we've wasted about gbp500 in the last couple of years...

The interesting part of this is only that what Samsung to today the others will do tomorrow, so this gives you an idea of spec and features of the rest of the Android community for the next year or so.

My new HTC doesn't have SD card expansion or a swappable battery, but the built in capacity is 50% of the SSD in my laptop (and more than the whole of Win7, apps and actually useful stuff takes on that PC!) so I can't imagine it running out soon. Battery swapping is similarly unimportant - I get ~2 days from it now and am rarely that long away from a charger; the Desire S battery is still going strong 2.5 years later so I'm sure the new one will last until my next upgrade.

To sum up, if you like Samsung and are going to upgrade in the next 12-18 months, you'll get this. If you don't or aren't then you won't.

Now move on.

one way or another..

.. I'll be jumping the iPhone ship when my contract is up. Having lived with a Nexus 7 as my little companion, I'm just loving how open it all is. I'm sick of the iTunes chain, and the walled-garden. The not-being-able to use half the phones features (bluetooth a pic to my mate? Nope!).

Likely a Galaxy then, but quite impressed with the Sony Experia Z. Either way, when the contract runs out, that'll be the last Apple product I ever have. Sorry Apple, it's a great piece of hardware, but I'm just sick of all the shackles.

The Share Music part of Group Play even lets you distribute surround sound speaker-by-speaker among five phones – the subwoofer signal of 5.1 surround sound, presumably, would be patently absurd to attempt to play on a Galaxy S 4.

Dear god. Please no - not this. It's bad enough having one inconsiderate sod's phone on the train blaring out music so that his mates can listen in, imagine what it would be like with up to five all playing the same stuff.

Incidentally does anybody know which variant will be sold in the UK? Will it be the one with the octo core processor?

World War Z

I recently purchased a Sony Xperia Z and was wondering if I'd regret getting it and not waiting a few more weeks for the S 4. I can now say that looking at the specs and features there's very little difference really and the Xperia Z also has the bonus of being waterproof. Plus it's made out of glass and i think looks a bit nicer. Only trouble is the screen, which whilst very impressive viewed directly-on, looks quite washed-out from shallow angles... it's a shame, but wasn't a deal-breaker for me...was wondering if anyone thought that this issue could be fixed with a software update though? Surely the screen is just the screen - 1080p, 441 ppi etc...it's the software controlling it which would need recalibrating right?

It bothers me that it has been announced less than 8 weeks before Android 5 is released. We don't know what is going to be baked into Key Lime Pie, but you can be sure that it will take months before Samsung have a version of TouchWiz compatible with it and longer before it comes to UK carriers.

I understand that Samsung wants to differentiate their handset , but I would be more likely to buy it if they gave me an option to install the latest OS. The iPhone 6 running IOS7 will likely be out before the S4 gets 5.0.

Octocore. So that's 6 more cores than my desktop currently has. In a phone. I have just one question.

Why?

One major success that's not been mentioned in the comments

An area where Apple need to get suing Samsung for copying them...

The publicity from this has been brilliant. It was reported on several different radio stations this morning, and last night, plus getting prominently into the papers. In the news sections, not the tech sections. This is the kind of free publicity that only really Apple have been getting on phones. The Galaxy S3.got a little bit of this treatment last year, but nothing in comparison.

So even if the event was a bit cringeworthy, it's served it's purpose well. What's the mainstream coverage been like in the US?

What's the advantage of useing GLONASS over the American GPS? Cost?

So another phone with great hardware let down by a crap, clunky OS that still doesn't let you install apps to SD card unless you root it?

In terms of actual user experience I don't think Apple has any need to be worried just yet.