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jamezr

macrumors P6
Aug 7, 2011
16,079
19,078
US
Yeah it should be getting updated quite a bit to fix all the bugs they find
yes....but just wait until the end of the month when they publish the bootloader unlock. There are already a few roms waiting in the wings. The Dev support for the GS4 is awesome. There are going to be a lot of options available.....
 

b166er

macrumors 68020
Apr 17, 2010
2,062
18
Philly
My S4 will for no reason light up and never go back to sleep. Anyone else experiencing this? It will be locked, and then the screen just pops on and won't turn off until I lock it again. No notifications or any other activity. Yesterday this happened while in my pocket and I didn't realize it, so it chewed up a lot of my battery life. I searched through all my settings and I can't figure out why it is behaving this way.
 

soulreaver99

macrumors 68040
Aug 15, 2010
3,710
6,447
Southern California
Wrote up my first impressions of the Galaxy S4 here: http://putthatback.org/samsung-galaxy-s4-first-impressions/

But to get straight to the point and to skip everything, here's what I think...

Pros

  • Beautiful display
  • Good overall performance
  • Excellent camera quality with daylight
  • Very lightweight device
  • Awesome camera features

Cons

  • Unimpressive build quality
  • Obvious lag due to system bloat
  • A lot of features are half baked
  • Half of 16GB storage available out of box

Please don't flame me, these are just my FIRST IMPRESSIONS as I have used this through the weekend ;)
 

Chodite

macrumors 6502a
Sep 23, 2007
586
0
Baltimore, MD
^ And in other news, the sky is blue.

Anyway, I'm 110% on-board now and I'm now not just comfortable with my first ever Android device... I don't just like it as much as my iPhone 5... I now like it more.
 

Dr McKay

macrumors 68040
Aug 11, 2010
3,538
272
Kirkland
Yeah it should be getting updated quite a bit to fix all the bugs they find

I'm good to go! Some kind soul on XDA finally responded to some of the others who had Wi-Fi issues with a Terminal command. I tried it and Wi-Fi sprang right up! :D

Running my lovely S4 now with zero UI lag. Sadly the OS still takes up the same space as it did before, hopefully someone will clear out that space in a future ROM update.
 

xchampx13

macrumors regular
Aug 4, 2012
128
0
yes....but just wait until the end of the month when they publish the bootloader unlock. There are already a few roms waiting in the wings. The Dev support for the GS4 is awesome. There are going to be a lot of options available.....
My carrier's version came with unlocked bootloader, have a few ROMs here and there, most Alpha or Beta version though.
 

KarmaRocket

macrumors 6502
Jan 4, 2009
292
244
Brooklyn, NY
I'm waiting to see what Apple releases next with the iphone (hopefully a larger screen), but the Galaxy S4 has intrigued me.

One thing I don't like about android is how they partition the storage space. I currently have a Galaxy Note. I love the device, but I've run out of space and it runs slow due to app space. I'm disappointed that I only have 2GB of space for apps. I have a 64GB card I can move some apps over, but a lot of apps don't allow you to be moved to the SD card. I heard some android phones now just have one large partition for everything. Does the Galaxy S4 follow this method?

thanks
 

LIVEFRMNYC

macrumors G3
Oct 27, 2009
8,878
10,987
I just realized that there is no way to get rid of the "Recommended shortcuts (Earphones)" bar when you plug in earphones. The S3 had this option. Doesn't really bother me, but it's unnecessary and some of the shortcuts have nothing to do with earphones/sound.
 

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,370
8,952
a better place
Wrote up my first impressions of the Galaxy S4 here: http://putthatback.org/samsung-galaxy-s4-first-impressions/

But to get straight to the point and to skip everything, here's what I think...

Pros

  • Beautiful display
  • Good overall performance
  • Excellent camera quality with daylight
  • Very lightweight device
  • Awesome camera features

Cons

  • Unimpressive build quality
  • Obvious lag due to system bloat
  • A lot of features are half baked
  • Half of 16GB storage available out of box

Please don't flame me, these are just my FIRST IMPRESSIONS as I have used this through the weekend ;)

No one should flame you. Your opinions are as valid as anyone else's and many reviewers shared similar impression.

Indeed those are pretty much my exact thoughts, although I actually thought the build quality of the device was actually very good. (Perhaps you mean build materials rather than build quality?)

For me had the device shipped with stock android or at least a not so heavy in resources OS - I'd have kept it. I'm too paranoid to root and run roms. I don't want to void my warranty to get a device to work as I want it to.

For me the S4 fab phone hardware wise, let down by Samsung overworking the software. For every new feature or software introduced, Samsung should have spent 3X as much effort optimising it, increasing overall performance (not synthetic benchmark performance but real work performance) and GUI fluidity. As soon as any new features introduced begin hurting performance and user experience, that's a point to stop and refine - if you can't refine it, then take it out. Hopefully Samsung take this aproach with the Note 3 and S5 next year.

Its interesting to see those that have flashed rom or now running cyanogen onto the device are already seeing memory usage drop by up to 2/3 rds. That if anything is a testament to how wasteful to me Sammy has made Touchwiz.
 

Technarchy

macrumors 604
May 21, 2012
6,753
4,927
Came close to getting a GS4 today at my local ATT dealer, but backed out at the last minute because AT&T was out of white at all the shops in the area.

I'll hold off now until after WWDC and see what iOS7 has to offer, and scour for a used GS4 instead.

Despite what many say about the plastics, I think the GS4 actually feels pretty good in the hand and doesn't feel as large as it actually is.

There is some UI lag though, which I absolutely hate, and is a big reason why I dumped android to begin with.

If I do get a GS4 I'll still be using my iPhone5 as a mega iPod Touch.
 

kaielement

macrumors 65816
Dec 16, 2010
1,242
74
AT&T??

You should have either deactivated iMessage on the iPhone 5 or stopped it from using your phone number.

This had nothing whatsoever to do with AT&T.




Michael

Yes this is true you probably had it set so that when the phone number was not in service it would send to the device linked to the email associated with your imessenger account. But again nothing to do with AT&T lol.
 

The Game 161

macrumors Nehalem
Dec 15, 2010
30,991
20,174
UK
need help

when you go to google it gives you the option which browser you can go to when searching..i set it to always internet by mistake..how do I get it back to use it on chrome instead?
 

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,370
8,952
a better place
need help

when you go to google it gives you the option which browser you can go to when searching..i set it to always internet by mistake..how do I get it back to use it on chrome instead?

Go into system settings / apps (application management) and find the app Internet. Click on it and in details that show up, scroll down and you should see 'clear defaults'. Simply press that and next time it'll ask you whether to launch chrome or internet again :) Just choose chrome this time and select always instead.
 

jamezr

macrumors P6
Aug 7, 2011
16,079
19,078
US
Came close to getting a GS4 today at my local ATT dealer, but backed out at the last minute because AT&T was out of white at all the shops in the area.

I'll hold off now until after WWDC and see what iOS7 has to offer, and scour for a used GS4 instead.

Despite what many say about the plastics, I think the GS4 actually feels pretty good in the hand and doesn't feel as large as it actually is.

There is some UI lag though, which I absolutely hate, and is a big reason why I dumped android to begin with.

If I do get a GS4 I'll still be using my iPhone5 as a mega iPod Touch.
There was an update recently that pretty much removes the lag from the UI.
It will be very interesting to see what WWDC has to offer this year. I can't wait until Apple decides to release a 4.5 to 5 inch phone. Maybe not this year for the IP5s but maybe next year with the iPhone 6.
 

The Game 161

macrumors Nehalem
Dec 15, 2010
30,991
20,174
UK
Go into system settings / apps (application management) and find the app Internet. Click on it and in details that show up, scroll down and you should see 'clear defaults'. Simply press that and next time it'll ask you whether to launch chrome or internet again :) Just choose chrome this time and select always instead.

cheers thanks alot

Just switch I could get rid of that stupid womans voice everytime I go onto the internet.

deleting light flow didn't help and everytime I click on my e-mail to delete the e-mail message it keeps saying ticked

ugh

battery life still isn't as good as i had hoped...currently on 13 hours with 44% left...and that was with only 8-9 hours asleep..dropped 9% in that time

listening to almost 2 hours of music dropped about 15%
 

rockitdog

macrumors 68030
Mar 25, 2013
2,724
1,241
For those who are complaining about lag, AT&T just pushed out an update that fixes it.

Also, turning off the things that aren't being used helps too. I wasn't always using air gesture and Air View, etc. and that helped with the lag emmensely.
 

sentinelsx

macrumors 68010
Feb 28, 2011
2,004
0
I saw two more galaxy S4s today in white. Had played with a black one in store before and thought it looked generic.

But white ones look nicer IMO. The HTC One still takes the crown in terms of looking absolutely gorgeous in my opinion, but after looking at the white S4s, i thought they looked pretty nice. All screen with minimal bezel. Light and thin as usual coupled with that huge screen makes it a pretty sexy device IMO.

I am sure once a Touchwiz based custom ROM is out that takes away all the bloat, it will be a great device to have. I would hope that samsung makes a 32GB version available though. I had a 32GB S3 and never needed an SD card.
 
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