I bought the Verizon S4 this morning. After spending all day with it, here are my thoughts.
I'll start off with what I like. It is the best feeling device I've ever held in my hand. It feels much nicer than my iPhone 5. Blacks are amazing. They're actually black, unlike previous AMOLED displays. The camera is great.
Now, the things I don't like.
The screen is not as good as an LCD. I'll even go as far as saying the Galaxy S4 has an ugly screen. Put it next to the HTC One or the iPhone 5 and there is no question that both are better than the S4. It is not even close.
Because it is PenTile, whites are still greenish, it isn't bright enough, and text is still fuzzy around the edges. Pictures and videos look great, but anything involving reading is not.
I still don't like TouchWiz. I have disabled all of the S crap and animations, and I downloaded Nova. There is still lag occasionally. The worst lag is in Maps. It will not pinch to zoom smoothly.
One thing for certain is I absolutely love Android. I like it better than iOS. I'm returning the S4 tomorrow and will wait for a new device with stock Android and an LCD.
I have no idea what Samsung's malfunction is, they really don't know how to make quality hardware or software.
Samsung can, market extremely well.
If Samsung developed a product as good as what they advertise, it'd be awesome.
I know right? I mean, Samsung has only sold like 75 million phones in their Galaxy line over the past few years with the S4 breaking records selling 10 million in under a month alone! Not only that but Consumer Reports, a company who bases their conclusions on scientific test results and not fanboyism or company bias just declared the S4 the best smartphone available! When will Samsung get their act together?!
I disabled the following apps.
Active apps manager
Alarm
Briefing
Bubbles
ChatON
ChocoEUKor
Clock Digital
Clock Digital
Com2uSPoker
CoolEUKor
DioDictService
DirectConnectManager
DirectShareManager
DroidSerifitalic
DropboxOOBE
Dual Clock Digital
Earth
eBay
Favourite Contacts
Group Play
HP Print services
Match3VS
Mobile Print
MobilePrintSvc_CUPS
MobilePrintSvc_CUPS_Backend
O2 space
PageBuddyNotiSvc
Phase beam
Polaris Office viewer 5
RoseEUKor
SHealth
SMemo
S Note Provider
S Planner Widget
S Translator
S Voice
Samsung Books
Samsung Games
Samsung Learning
Samsung Print Service
Samsung Browser Bookmarks
Samsung Browser Tab Sync
Samsung Sans
SensorService
Facebook SNS
Story Album
Story Album Widget
Trip Advisor
Weather Widget
Yahoo Finance
Yahoo News
Run the Wakelock Detector App - it will show you a list of apps that have held wake locks and the duration for which they were held. Post the screenshot here or you can look at the top offenders and disable / remove them. It might be Google Now / Maps - in that case try disabling it in the settings and see if that improves things.
Marketing is great. Isn't it?I know right? I mean, Samsung has only sold like 75 million phones in their Galaxy line over the past few years with the S4 breaking records selling 10 million in under a month alone! Not only that but Consumer Reports, a company who bases their conclusions on scientific test results and not fanboyism or company bias just declared the S4 the best smartphone available! When will Samsung get their act together?!
Marketing is great. Isn't it?
Marketing is only a part of it. The Note 2 has sold well over 10 million units, more than pretty much any phone not an iPhone or S model Galaxy. When is the last time you saw a commercial or even an ad for the Note 2? I dont believe Ive ever seen one...
Marketing is only a part of it. The Note 2 has sold well over 10 million units, more than pretty much any phone not an iPhone or S model Galaxy. When is the last time you saw a commercial or even an ad for the Note 2? I dont believe Ive ever seen one...
Marketing is only a part of it. The Note 2 has sold well over 10 million units, more than pretty much any phone not an iPhone or S model Galaxy. When is the last time you saw a commercial or even an ad for the Note 2? I dont believe Ive ever seen one...
Take a walk around a mall.....I see posters everywhere.....
If sales are a primary driver of which is best, the iPhone 4S remains king (more than 120 million sold).
So posters around a few malls are driving the Note 2 to be one of the best selling phones in the past year? Sure. Maybe HTC should be putting up more posters at malls...
And of course marketing is the ONLY reason Apple has sold that many, correct? Because there are SO many better made phones on the market, that just don't have that marketing genius, right?
P.S: companies don't spend $$$$M on marketing a *****ty product
Heck ya they should.....hence why their non-existant marketing only sold 7-8 million HTC One X's last year.....
I'm not saying the Note 2 has a ton of marketing.
I also disagree with the notion that 10 million is a large number. Especially for a phone that really has NO competition in its group (the phablet group).
Samsung and Apple market the heck out of their top phones, hence why they sell the most. Everything else gets muddled into an "others" group.
Although HTC is making a bigger marketing push, and wouldn't you know - 5 million One's sold this month.Marketing plays a massive role in this. Samsung spends a fortune on it and has risen to prominence through it. Obviously, you have to put out a good product, but the marketing is a big key to sales success.
----------
Not ONLY, but a big reason sure.
Read the above post. I think there have been times when better phones have been overshadowed because of poor marketing.
Not that HTC made the best phone last year, but the One X got rave reviews and was a sales dud due primarily to poor marketing.
----------
Agreed - but some unfortunately don't spend enough money marketing a great product.....hence why HTC execs are "leaving".....
I would agree to some extent with the highlighted part. But also there is the fact that most review sites raved about the HTC One...... Also word of mouth and the blogshere was abuzz with the One......if the phone was crap well then all that would not have happened and it would not have sold 5 millions units.
The HTC One has been marketed by the carriers more than any HTC ad i have seen......The carriers knew they had a great phone to sell to customers.
I think my point has been misconstrued.
I am in no way suggesting Samsung devices are crap.....
Merely stating that Samsung and Apple are in the places they are due to great marketing.....
And that there have been other great smartphones out there (HTC One X got good reviews last year and flopped) that aren't marketed as well and miss the mark.
The One is without a doubt the best smartphone I've ever used (IMO) and its finally got some marketing push.......I saw a short clip on how they made it and the production process before a movie I saw the other week. They also have experience kiosks set up in the mall near my house.
After disabling Location Services, GPS and turning off most Google services, looks like I'm doing ok. Just a shame I have to essentially cripple my phone to get decent battery life. Here's the latest from earlier today from Wakelock Detector and a screenshot of my battery summary. You'll notice Google Services went from 25-35% of my battery usage to now under 10%
[url=http://s13.postimg.org/7w1f8fbo7/2013_05_24_11_29_17.png]Image[/url]
image hosting no registration
[url=http://s9.postimg.org/67ltr4wm7/2013_05_24_12_05_16.png]Image[/url]
image ru
So posters around a few malls are driving the Note 2 to be one of the best selling phones in the past year? Sure. Maybe HTC should be putting up more posters at malls...
I would be tempted to try something different than Neat Calendar widget and Beautiful Widgets TBH.
DxO Labs has named Samsung's Galaxy S4 a new winner in its mobile-phone camera tests.
The French firm, which specializes in camera optics and image sensor analysis, gave the new Android phone a score of 75 this week, edging out the iPhone 5 at 72. The top scorer is the Nokia 808 Pureview at 77, but that model is hobbled by its Symbian operating system, a commercial failure compared to Apple's iOS in the iPhone and Google's Android in the Galaxy S4.
Perhaps Nokia will have better commercial success with its rumored "Eos" phone, which could incorporate the relatively large image sensor and high-end Zeiss lens of the 808 Pureview into a Windows Phone model. And of course the iPhone 5 isn't the last word from Apple.
Cameras have become a crucial part of smartphone performance as people shift away from dedicated cameras to a device that they're likely to have at all times and that comes equipped with a network connection for immediate sharing.
The Samsung flagship phone outdid its iPhone rival in most categories for still photos and videos, DxO concluded, but it wasn't a clean sweep. The iPhone 5 suffered fewer image-processing artifacts and its video stabilization worked better.
The Galaxy S4 showed "impressive detail preservation in bright light conditions," DxO said. "The 13-megapixel sensor shows a significant improvement compared to the best 8-megapixel smartphone cameras."
In low light, though, the Galaxy S4 suffered from noise, and in general the camera oversharpened images so that edges suffered from halos.
Not that HTC made the best phone last year, but the One X got rave reviews and was a sales dud due primarily to poor marketing.