2 weeks with the Galaxy S4

It's been pretty close to 2 weeks with my S4 and I have to say for me the wait was well worth it. I am very happy to return to the Samsung ecosystem. I'm not sure what happened to my Galaxy Nexus but it had become a laggy beast on 4.2.2 and the photo quality was really wearing me down.


There really is nothing as disappointing as taking a picture and looking at it on a computer screen and seeing fuzziness. My SGS wasn't like that so I hadn't expected the Galaxy Nexus to be like that. The shutter speed was a poor trade off. Happily with the S4 there is no trade off. Zoomed in closeup shots look as good on my computer screen as they do on the device screen. The built in camera effects are still a lot of fun and photosphere is the default panorama mode. With the faster response, photosphere has finally become fun and easy. For a traditional panorama simple touch the stop button when you've gotten to the "end" of your scene.
I love the animated features and the built in editing tool works well for me in most cases. I still have SnapSeed for funkier effects. The only down side I've found is sometimes Gallery lags a bit but once I set it to only the device that pretty well stopped.

I also really like how the S4 just works. When I take it away from my ear the screen immediately comes on. The screen is brilliant and very sensitive; reading books and magazines are a pleasure. I have it on auto with the brightness bumped up a little and I can always see the screen - viewing in much better in bright sunlight than my Nexus was. FitBit support appeared very soon after release so by FitBit is always synced and prompting me to meet my fitness goals. The sounds are loud and clear (again, the Nexus wasn't).

The button arrangement didn't take nearly as much adjustment as I thought it would and most apps automatically adjust or have two ways to access the menu and the center button is really well designed; just raised enough to feel it but not obtrusive. The whole device is very solid feeling to me and with Google implementing feature updates via apps rather than core OS upgrades, I am confident this device will have a long lifespan just like the S3 will have. Samsung has always been quite good about updating Canadian devices and adding new features to older devices that have the resources to run them.


Everyone should enjoy the device they have in hand as much as I am enjoying the S4. Whether you choose another android device like the HTC One, an iPhone or a Nokia your high end device should wow you.

Comments