Underwhelming Samsung Galaxy S 4

[MRU]

This is not perfectly true. Samsung Sweden has confirmed that we will be getting the "US" model as well - The Snapdragon, the same goes for several other EU countries. This is apparently due to the fact that the Exynos does not support our 4G/LTE frequencies or something along those lines.

You lucky swedes ....

 

[MacRazySwe]

You lucky swedes ....

What do you mean?

 

[nick_elt]

What do you mean?

Image

ha, you dont need Swedish girls to make the British girls look ugly.

 

[torana355]

Ill stick with pure android thanks, I love my Nexus 4.

 

[WhiteIphone5]

Hi guys.

First of all, I was pretty much insulted when they showed up the S4's plastic construction. While every other OEM is making nicely builded flagships, Samsung shows.... this.

It has a 1080p display. Fine, for now. It has the PenTile sub-pixel arrangement. Not fine at all. I still don't understand why they stopped the Super AMOLED Plus display at the Galaxy S II, it's a much better display than the regular Super AMOLED. It's like they stopped improving their displays and they only care to make it higher res. But a good display needs more than just higher res.

Then, hands-on videos were released and I watched a lot of them. I saw multiple lags (shouldn't happen on a 4xCortexA15+4xCortexA7 device). This is a freaking 8 cores device. 8 cores. IT LAGS. JUST... NO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtmQvZjobyM

This video also revealed the Sunspider benchmark result..... Less than 100ms better than the iPhone 5 (and equal to the iPad 4). I am waiting for other benchmarks results.

I noticed that for 95% of the show, they talked about gimmicky features instead of the real product. Honestly, who the hell will be using these features to make them really important?

Anyway, I was really let down by this device. By the way, before I forget, what a lame move to laugh at the iPhone 4S's design because it was like the iPhone 4. They just laugh at themselves.

insulted by a phone????

I'm losing hope in humanity..

 

[Krimsonmyst]

Found this quote on Androidcentral: "Also, the software we used on the Galaxy S4 was very pre-production, less finished than what's on our HTC One."

I figured as much. I'm running a stock Samsung rom on my international gs3 and it doesn't lag at all, so it'd be a crying shame if the 4 did

 

[batting1000]

note 2 does not lag. it seems Samsung has gone backwards if the s4 does indeed lag.

Yes it does. I owned one personally (got rid of it almost 3 weeks ago to go back to the iPhone 5) and it lagged on a day to day basis, whether it be the browser, Chrome, the widgets drawer, the notifications panel if it had too many notifications in it, and even some games.

 

[mib1800]

Yes it does. I owned one personally (got rid of it almost 3 weeks ago to go back to the iPhone 5) and it lagged on a day to day basis, whether it be the browser, Chrome, the widgets drawer, the notifications panel if it had too many notifications in it, and even some games.

I have note 2 and it doesn't lag generally. Of course sometimes it slows down if you are doing intense multi tasking with few apps running together or loading lots of data from the disk.

heck even iphone lags when you have multi tabs opened in safari. of course you don't see it so often since iphone can only run one app at a time. jailbreak an iPhone and use backgrounder to keep many apps active like android and it lags much worse than android. ios really sucks at doing real multi tasking. maybe that's why apple dare not introduce it system wide.

 

[walie]

Yes it does. I owned one personally (got rid of it almost 3 weeks ago to go back to the iPhone 5) and it lagged on a day to day basis, whether it be the browser, Chrome, the widgets drawer, the notifications panel if it had too many notifications in it, and even some games.

My 3rd gen iPad is MUCH more laggy than my note2. Should never have "upgraded" to ios6

 

[batting1000]

I have note 2 and it doesn't lag generally. Of course sometimes it slows down if you are doing intense multi tasking with few apps running together or loading lots of data from the disk.

heck even iphone lags when you have multi tabs opened in safari. of course you don't see it so often since iphone can only run one app at a time. jailbreak an iPhone and use backgrounder to keep many apps active like android and it lags much worse than android. ios really sucks at doing real multi tasking. maybe that's why apple dare not introduce it system wide.

I personally don't see what's so wrong about the iOS multitasking. The fact that you can switch between apps, even if the one you're switching to is frozen, is the whole idea of multitasking. Who cares if it isn't actually running in the back? Most apps don't need to anyway (MAYBE a webpage if you wanted something to load while doing something else). I can honestly say I've barely every experienced lag on my iPhone. I can say my 5 has lagged / dropped frames 1-3 times since I got it in September.

The Note would lag when I opened the widget screen. First it would freeze and then scrolling through it would be laggy. The notification panel drops frames left and right when there are a bunch of notifications in it. The scrolling toggles at the top drop frames too when the there are too many notifications. When opening the camera from the lock screen the screen rotation animation lagged. When you have a bunch of stuff on your home screen it lagged.

I honestly don't see why having stuff running in the background is necessary. I've never had a moment where I wished I had it as the current implementation of multitasking works fine and I'm sure that's the case for most average users.

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My 3rd gen iPad is MUCH more laggy than my note2. Should never have "upgraded" to ios6

The iPad 3 never really performed that well. I guess it was a combination of the Retina display and the fact that it's still really only an A5 chip with a better GPU. It's obvious that's the case because the iPad 4 runs iOS 6 without any issues. Heck, I didn't really notice that much lag at all on my iPad 2 and I barely do on my mini.

 

[marc11]

I personally don't see what's so wrong about the iOS multitasking. The fact that you can switch between apps, even if the one you're switching to is frozen, is the whole idea of multitasking. Who cares if it isn't actually running in the back? Most apps don't need to anyway (MAYBE a webpage if you wanted something to load while doing something else). I can honestly say I've barely every experienced lag on my iPhone. I can say my 5 has lagged / dropped frames 1-3 times since I got it in September.

The Note would lag when I opened the widget screen. First it would freeze and then scrolling through it would be laggy. The notification panel drops frames left and right when there are a bunch of notifications in it. The scrolling toggles at the top drop frames too when the there are too many notifications. When opening the camera from the lock screen the screen rotation animation lagged. When you have a bunch of stuff on your home screen it lagged.

I honestly don't see why having stuff running in the background is necessary. I've never had a moment where I wished I had it as the current implementation of multitasking works fine and I'm sure that's the case for most average users.
.

It is very annoying that apps do not run in the background. Sometimes I am using several apps that need to "do things" and instead of looking at a spinning wheel or wiating screen I would like to go on and do something else while it finishes, be it downloading, connecting, searching, whatever. You cannot do that, once you leave the app, it stops doing what it was doing.

iOS does not give multitasking, what it gives is short cuts to recently used apps is all.

BTW I am an average user, so please do not lump everyone into a category of needs; there is a huge difference in how people are FORCED to use a device as opposed to how they WANT to use the device. Trust me, if iOS alllowed for REAL multitasking the average user would USE IT!

 

[batting1000]

Trust me, if iOS alllowed for REAL multitasking the average user would USE IT!

Exactly, because it'd be built in and you'd be forced to use it. All I know is that stuff running in the background kills the battery and Android is a prime example of that. I had the Note 2 and I'd get 3 hours of screen on time on average every day with pretty much nothing on (no bluetooth, no location services, etc). I can get about 7 hours of use on average on my iPhone 5 (about 80-90 percent of that is screen on time, the rest is Pandora). Yet the Note II has a larger battery (albeit a larger screen as well)....

 

[marc11]

Exactly, because it'd be built in and you'd be forced to use it. All I know is that stuff running in the background kills the battery and Android is a prime example of that. I had the Note 2 and I'd get 3 hours of screen on time on average every day with pretty much nothing on (no bluetooth, no location services, etc). I can get about 7 hours of use on average on my iPhone 5 (about 80-90 percent of that is screen on time, the rest is Pandora). Yet the Note II has a larger battery (albeit a larger screen as well)....

But I would rather it be my choice. What the heck good is having a long battery life if I have to spend extra time managing my apps and data? I say, give me the choice and let me decide if I want to keep apps open in the background running or not. And there in lies the rub with Apple, they tell you what is most important to you and you have no choice. I can think for myself thank you very much Apple. They could easily have made a simple setting, multitasking On/Off with a warning about battery life. Done. I have Android apps like Double Twist that does this, if I turn on Air Sync it confirms if I want to leave it on due to battery drain. In the message board it also reminds me. Same with GPS and BT, Android warns me about battery life. iOS can and should do this too.

Battery life comparisons between two different devices and two different OS and two different use patterns, is impossible and meaningless honestly.

 

[F123D]

I'd be surprised if the iPhone lagged considering the limitation of the OS. I have the Note II and have noticed no lag even with everything Samsung threw at the OS.

 

[batting1000]

Battery life comparisons between two different devices and two different OS and two different use patterns, is impossible and meaningless honestly.

While that may be true, the point I'm trying to make is that random processes running in the background affect the battery life. Android is terrible at managing background processes and it contributes to lower battery life. I didn't have different usage patterns. I used both devices the same way (if anything I used the Note less because I didn't have all the stuff I had on my iPhone). I've had 4 different Android phones, 3 before the iPhone and 1 just a couple weeks ago and I always felt like I had to turn things off or clear out my RAM and background processes in order to save battery.

Why doesn't Android have an option to turn of background processes / things running in the background like you say iOS should have? Why don't I have a say in that?

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I'd be surprised if the iPhone lagged considering the limitation of the OS. I have the Note II and have noticed no lag even with everything Samsung threw at the OS.

I must have eyes really sensitive to dropped frames. They're pretty glaring.

 

[walie]

The iPad 3 never really performed that well. I guess it was a combination of the Retina display and the fact that it's still really only an A5 chip with a better GPU. It's obvious that's the case because the iPad 4 runs iOS 6 without any issues. Heck, I didn't really notice that much lag at all on my iPad 2 and I barely do on my mini.

From speculating in one sentence to being absolutely certain in the next. Right.


Loading up simple web pages on this iPad is laggy. The same pages are silky smooth on my single core centrino 6 year old laptop. The lag is disgusting on this iPad. No wonder they released the 4 in less than a year.

 

[unobtainium]

It's an eight core device but only four cores run at once.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the A7 will probably not be as fast as the processor in the S3, so every day tasks will be slightly slower. That might explain any lag? Or it could just be pre-production models.

Even the A6 is already faster than the processor in the US version of the S3.

 

[irDigital0l]

I didn't get a chance to watch the announcement event and I heard it was pretty bad but I still thought the GS4 was pretty cool.

After watching it...I have to say, I will not be upgrading my iPhone 4 with that.

Waiting on iPhone 5S and Nexus 5.

 

[marc11]

While that may be true, the point I'm trying to make is that random processes running in the background affect the battery life. Android is terrible at managing background processes and it contributes to lower battery life. I didn't have different usage patterns. I used both devices the same way (if anything I used the Note less because I didn't have all the stuff I had on my iPhone). I've had 4 different Android phones, 3 before the iPhone and 1 just a couple weeks ago and I always felt like I had to turn things off or clear out my RAM and background processes in order to save battery.

Why doesn't Android have an option to turn of background processes / things running in the background like you say iOS should have? Why don't I have a say in that?

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I must have eyes really sensitive to dropped frames. They're pretty glaring.

I can turn off many and most background processes if I want in Android, I can also choose just not to multitask if I want. I can list all processes by battery drain and decide which not to run. So which processes could you not turn off in Android that do not exist on iOS that contributed to heavy drain?

 

[mib1800]

Exactly, because it'd be built in and you'd be forced to use it. All I know is that stuff running in the background kills the battery and Android is a prime example of that. I had the Note 2 and I'd get 3 hours of screen on time on average every day with pretty much nothing on (no bluetooth, no location services, etc). I can get about 7 hours of use on average on my iPhone 5 (about 80-90 percent of that is screen on time, the rest is Pandora). Yet the Note II has a larger battery (albeit a larger screen as well)....

if you get 3 hrs of screen on time with note 2 per charge per day then your note 2 is busted or you are trying to deceive. if it is the latter then you should put up more credible number so that there is a better chance of getting away with it.

btw the usage time of ios is not the same as screen on time. You don't touch the iPhone and yet it register usage time.

 

[matttye]

Even the A6 is already faster than the processor in the US version of the S3.

I'm talking about the Cortex A7 quad core processor in the S4, not Apples yet to be released A7.

 

[nick_elt]

My 3rd gen iPad is MUCH more laggy than my note2. Should never have "upgraded" to ios6

i was just about to post the same thing.

 

[hyteckit]

My Note 2 lags tons more than my iPad Mini and iPhone 4S.

All it took was to install GO Launcher.

The worst iPhone I've own was the iPhone 3G. Not only was it because of the cheap plastic feel, but also the lack of memory and processor to handle multitasking.

 

[Krimsonmyst]

My Note 2 lags tons more than my iPad Mini and iPhone 4S.

All it took was to install GO Launcher.

The worst iPhone I've own was the iPhone 3G. Not only was it because of the cheap plastic feel, but also the lack of memory and processor to handle multitasking.

You either all own defective android products or are making stuff up, because I've had a galaxy s3 since launch day, and I've never really had lag past a few frame skips here and there.

Heck, I'm even happy to post a video if you don't believe me...

 

[hyteckit]

You either all own defective android products or are making stuff up, because I've had a galaxy s3 since launch day, and I've never really had lag past a few frame skips here and there.

Heck, I'm even happy to post a video if you don't believe me...

You mean every Android device I've own is defective?

It lags just scrolling through the app list on my Note 2. Looks like 14 fps jerky movement.

The Galaxy Note 2 is my 3rd Samsung Android device I've own. I previously own a Galaxy Tab 7 running froyo, and then upgraded to gingerbread. It was slow, buggy, laggy, and the screen froze every hour and refuses to recognize any of my screen interactions. Maybe my old Galaxy Tab 7 was defective, but I'm pretty sure my Note 2 isn't defective.

How can you say you never have any lag then say "past a few frame skips here and there." I'm pretty sure if you notice frame skips, it's lagging.

That's like I never had my windows machine crashed past a few BSOD here and there.