If you're looking for Samsung's new Galaxy S4 to define a novel new era of smartphone greatness, it's time to temper your expectations. The brand-new flagship smartphone, which runs the latest Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, improves hardware significantly and it piles on the features. Compared with the extremely successful Galaxy S3 that came before, it's a firm stride forward rather than a giant a leap, but it raises the bar again for Samsung's competitors. And by super-sizing the screen and packing in so much specialized software, the GS4 sets itself even farther apart from the iPhone.
The Galaxy S4 handset steadily draws from the same design language as the S3, but takes almost every spec to an extreme -- the screen is larger (5 inches), the resolution greater (1080p), the battery capacity higher (2,600mAh), the processor faster (1.9GHz quad-core or 1.6GHz octa-core), and the rear-facing camera stuffed with more megapixels (13, to be exact). But, once you've gone through the features checklist (which also includes lots of internal and external storage space and RAM), it's the software extras that Samsung continues to lean on to keep its phones one step ahead of the competition.
The problem is, based on my brief time with the Galaxy S4, very few of the extensive list of enhancements stood out as a killer, must-have, cannot-possibly-live-without feature. The TV control app that works with the IR blaster is perhaps one exception and HTC One also comes with this feature, as are a handy translation tool and eye-tracking and gesture capabilities that allow you to pause a video when you stop paying attention and let you hover your finger over an item to preview what it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment