Unknown Soldier
Member
$40, huh? Why do I find this hard to believe? How much did you pay for your ZL?
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Samsung Galaxy S4 (new flagship Android phone from Samsung)
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$40, huh? Why do I find this hard to believe? How much did you pay for your ZL?
jamesinclair
Banned
False, roaming includes internet (300mb or 500mb monthly cap, cant remember which).
Sprint is now averaging 1mb for 3G in many cities, ie, what you can expect from good 3G on any network.
Again, false. Not every verizon tower will get 4G. That is a fact. Where do you get your ideas from?
To build 4G, you need two upgrades.
1) Tower tech/antenna
2) Back-haul
Verizon hasnt been working on part 2, which is why they were able to do it so quickly.
Good short term, terrible long term.
People ask why Sprint doesnt have 4G LTE in lower Manhattan, but is almost done with Houston. Its because the backhaul upgrades take 6+ month in dense cities. The inverse is the most rural of places, where getting fiber hooked up can also take an eternity. Verizon skipped that step.
The result? While Verizon had 40mb/s on day 1 of LTE.....theyll be at 5mb/s when everyone has an LTE phone and is barking up the same antenna.
Thats correct, every network will see much lower average speeds than the technology max.
Please come back with facts next time.
You drive a hard bargain, but I will take your ZL for 40.
The Faceless Master
Member
nope, it's pretty thin and light.
well as far as displaying goes ... go into yr gallery ... hit menu ... tap on "content to display" and only have "content in device" ticked.
Nicktendo86
Member
For what it's worth this is what I posted in the Android thread after a brief hands on with the S4 earlier:
So just got back to work after popping into an EE shop at lunch, had a quick fondle of the GS4.
They actually had two units, one white and one black but the white one was smashed. It looked like they tightened the little cradle that holds the demo phones in place too tight and it completely cracked the screen. Consequence of the smaller bezels perhaps? The phone was off so I had a go on the black one.
First impressions - meh. Didn't like the textured look on the plastic, I thought it looked tacky and a little off putting. It felt similar to the S3, plastic innit.
They seem to have made the space at the bottom with the back/menu/home buttons smaller to accommodate the bigger screen and I found it a little difficult to adjust my hand to reach. I do, admittedly, have fairly small hands but I find my GNexus perfect for size.
I didn't find any of the slowdowns or hiccups that people seem to mention so that was good. can I just say I hate touchwiz so much, it seems even worse than the S3. The drop drop sounds when you touch things was also so irritating, I turned that off on the store's phone to do everyone a favour.
The screen was gorgeous, I am AMOLED hater number one but it looked lovely. Very crisp and sharp, lovely colours. I was very aware though that they were a bit too much, I only remembered about the colour settings the phone has now when I left so I didn't try them. Personally I stil prefer the IPS screen of the N4.
I didn't have time to try many of the features, just tried smart scroll. I found it worse than useless, I had to move my whole head down to get it to scroll and I felt like a buffoon in the shop doing that.
Overall: very meh. I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend this over a N4 or even, god forbid, an iPhone 5. It will sell gangbusters but Samsung need to town down touchwiz and improve their build materials.
So just got back to work after popping into an EE shop at lunch, had a quick fondle of the GS4.
They actually had two units, one white and one black but the white one was smashed. It looked like they tightened the little cradle that holds the demo phones in place too tight and it completely cracked the screen. Consequence of the smaller bezels perhaps? The phone was off so I had a go on the black one.
First impressions - meh. Didn't like the textured look on the plastic, I thought it looked tacky and a little off putting. It felt similar to the S3, plastic innit.
They seem to have made the space at the bottom with the back/menu/home buttons smaller to accommodate the bigger screen and I found it a little difficult to adjust my hand to reach. I do, admittedly, have fairly small hands but I find my GNexus perfect for size.
I didn't find any of the slowdowns or hiccups that people seem to mention so that was good. can I just say I hate touchwiz so much, it seems even worse than the S3. The drop drop sounds when you touch things was also so irritating, I turned that off on the store's phone to do everyone a favour.
The screen was gorgeous, I am AMOLED hater number one but it looked lovely. Very crisp and sharp, lovely colours. I was very aware though that they were a bit too much, I only remembered about the colour settings the phone has now when I left so I didn't try them. Personally I stil prefer the IPS screen of the N4.
I didn't have time to try many of the features, just tried smart scroll. I found it worse than useless, I had to move my whole head down to get it to scroll and I felt like a buffoon in the shop doing that.
Overall: very meh. I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend this over a N4 or even, god forbid, an iPhone 5. It will sell gangbusters but Samsung need to town down touchwiz and improve their build materials.
noticed tonight the media sharing works alot better on the s4 over the s3.
the iR blaster is fucking cool, just sitting there in the notification try .. so it's instantly avail, no need for an app to load.
and also, when sending video to my 6000 series samsung tv ... you can home button and continue using the phone like normal, and the media will keep playing on my tv, the s3 would exit the app when you did the same thing.
the iR blaster is fucking cool, just sitting there in the notification try .. so it's instantly avail, no need for an app to load.
and also, when sending video to my 6000 series samsung tv ... you can home button and continue using the phone like normal, and the media will keep playing on my tv, the s3 would exit the app when you did the same thing.
From reading that Engadget piece, the Exynos slightly edges it, but there won't be a version that works on LTE in the west for a while at least.
According to Engadget, the Exynos produces slightly better better benchmarks while the S600 gets better battery life.
Man, I bought the S3 at best buy last night....after i got all my apps installed and setup, I noticed it had a dead pixel in the center screen...cannot be unseen
It's black too, which I assume means it's dead and not stuck right?
I admittedly don't know Best Buy's specific policy on this, but you should be able to make an exchange no problem.
what is so horrible re AMOLED .... i'm the opposite, i wont buy a phone that isn't amoled. pure black is everything to me.
and touch whiz .. why the hate? is it purely cosmetic? the drop drop sounds? seriously? you can change those in the sound menu to a load of others. launcher ..well i put nova on anything i buy anyways .. no root required there, it's just an app.
and IMHO .. touchwiz is BY far the least intrusive of any of the big android manufacturer skins ... you can get to the fuctions you need to way easier than sense, the task manager is stright up default jellybean ... and we all know the camera is the most fully functional one you'll find on any device ..
and the S features are not gimmicks ... next time you have food on yr fingers or whatever you'll be thankful for quick glance, and wave to answer, S-beam is still un-matched in terms of getting files to mates.
ZeroCypher
Member
Anyone know if the Sprint version is a world phone (meaning can I put in an international sim card and use it outside the US on that nation's gsm network for calling)? Keep getting different answers from Sprint forums.
At this point I wouldn't make a blanket recommendation on any Android phone, N4 S4 One or otherwise. It's really going to come down to what a person wants in a phone.
Try A Wave Live Wallpaper. My current favourite. Phase Beam is also good.
Victory Red
Member
This.
My brother's kids (4 and 5 years old) always play with his iPhone, going into the pictures, taking pictures, playing games, etc. I wouldn't recommend this phone to him because I dont' think his kids could navigate their way around it.
I strongly think Samsung should allow themes for TouchWiz. Would solve the majority of the issues people have with it. Functionally, I appreciate everything Samsung puts on top of stock. Some are gimmicky, like the hand waving and eye tracking but others are great, like the video player and camera.
Nicktendo86
Member
I dislike amoled due to the over saturated colours a d burn in problems, personally I prefer a GOOD LCD. I said though that I liked the screen on the S4, it is the best amoled I have seen.
Personally I can't stand touchwiz, it adds unneeded bloat to stock android and looks very messy. I wouldn't say all the s features are gimmicks but s scroll deffo was.
Victory Red
Member
TouchWiz asthetics are only an issue if you've been with it for a long time. One of the reasons I left iOS is because of their asthetics. 6 years of iOS and you get sick of looking at the same old (un-moving) icons and menus. Its looking like iOS7 is going to get a face lift but it only took them 7 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIV1TRt0Bqk
Look at 7:32 for AMOLED vs LCD comparisons on HTC One and Galaxy S4
Dr.Horrible
Member
I'm in the same boat as you. I reviewed all of my account usage (data, texts, calls, etc) on the Verizon website and determined that our usage over the last 6 months and the amount of our current bill translates into the new plan structure with a 6 GB data cap.
I can live with that as the payment won't change much (may actually go down) and our average data usage has been between 4-5 GB.
I'd suggest reviewing all your stats on the Verizon site and then trying to figure out how that maps to the new plans and caps. I actually had a Verizon store rep tell me it's not worth it to lose my unlimited data, but based on what I look at I disagree.
Also, if you buy a new phone for full price at $650+ tax, that's a good $450 more than what you'll be paying with the subsidy (after rebate). That works out to $18.75/mo extra over two years. You could just put that $19-$20 toward a higher data cap and spend much less out of pocket today. That's my thoughts on the matter anyway. Obviously it really depends on how much data you currently use/need and how much you expect to use/need.
Edit - Unrelated to the above, but does anyone know if shortages of the S4 are likely at Verizon? I haven't preordered yet for a few reasons, but don't want to get screwed out of getting one by the 30th.
The Faceless Master
Member
depends on if you want LTE or some slightly higher benchmarks
Nemesis_
Member
I've got the non-Exynos one. I think based on what people are saying I have the right one to have.
For my needs, anyway.
are we talking brightness levels ?
http://gizmodo.com/5995376/galaxy-s-iv-display-shoot+out-how-does-it-compare
basically it's sammys power management sw, in auto mode the brightness levels can go up to 34% over the max poss via the manual slider ..
either way i leav mine on auto and i never feel it's too dim .. but hey, maybe it's because i'm used to samsung brightness preferences ..
but for me, i spend most my time using my phone at night, because at work during the day, well i'm working .. and the one test for me is always this .... if the lights are out, and i hold my phone up ... if all i see is the object on screen ....and not the rest of the screen, and not the rest of the phone - then we have a winner..
oled can make objects appear as though they are floating in space in front of you because of perfect blacks. LCD grey fuzz is not attractive ..
imo
edit:
actually i can see what samsung have done here, they have intergrated the S3's camera's outdoor extreme brightness mode , right into the phones system wide auto-brightness feature. pretty good idea actually ...must burn through battery though. and the slider on the autobrightness allows you to modify to yr own tastes what brightness the phone should level too.
people say galaxy phones have too many options ... rubbish, sure they have a LOT of options, but the vast majority are there for reasons.
Can you explain this further? I haven't been really following. Right now I have an old as bawls Droid incredible with unlimited data. I'd be upgrading to a GS4 so what (if anything) does that mean for my plan? I keep hearing things about this here and there but I haven't researched it.
Basically, you have two options if you are currently on VZW with unlimited data:
- If you want to keep your unlimited data, you have to pay retail price for a new phone, and all future phones you buy (assuming VZW doesn't change their policies at some point.)
- If you want to only pay the upgrade price for a new phone, you will be forced onto the newer data plans, where you will have to pay for a fixed amount of data.
As others have noted: If you use a large amount of data, it makes more sense to pay retail price for phones to keep the unlimited LTE. If you don't, the tiered plans make more sense. Log in to your account online, see how much data a month you use, figure out how much more/less you would pay a month if you bought a tiered data plan that fits your use, and make your decision from there.
i went in a week early @ ATT and got mine ordered - go in and ask!
Woah, this is really good to know. Thanks so much.
Dr.Horrible
Member
I check the website seemingly every day hoping it comes out sooner. I know it won't happen, but it doesn't stop me from checking anyway
My current phone is cracked to hell and I'm upgrade eligible tomorrow. It's terribly tempting to just jump to a Galaxy S3, but again, I know better and need to keep holding out for the S4.
This is what put my plans on buying a Note 2 on indefinite hold. For me, if the S4 is less than 700 dollars, It's worth it for me, else...I don't know.
But I'm going to smash this Thunderbolt with a god damn hammer once I get my new phone.
Victory Red
Member
I have a software update. Installing now. Not sure what it does. Comes in at about 21MB
AT&T? It's tagged as a "maintenance update" apparently.
Some people have claimed it has eliminated some/all of their lag issues, but I always take those claims with a grain of salt, placebo effect and all.
ZedIndyLil
Member
I've dropped my current phone 3 times in the last 2 weeks. I think it's my body telling me it's time to upgrade.
Just came back from the store after seeing and holding both the S4 and HTC one. I'm still an HTC one diehard and would rather have that over the S4, but I walked away pleasantly surprised at the in hand feel of the S4. The first thing I noticed it is surprisingly thin, even thinner than the HTC one. But more importantly, the in hand feel of the S4 is not nearly as bad as galaxy nexus, even though they are both plastic the s4 feels a lot more comfortable to hold. Overall I walked way more content with my decision to get the S4, and it will do until Verizon decides to stop strong arming smaller manufacturers like HTC.
Victory Red
Member
No placebo. I'm definitely getting in and out of apps noticeably smoother.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
Did T-Mobile get the same update?
Different update, apparently involving the Visual Voicemail app and updates to ISIS, their mobile payment solution. No mention of performance improvements for that one, from what I've seen.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
Grr. Hopefully it comes before I get the phone!
Lol. I compared my S4 with an iPhone 5 yesterday and a lot of that time was spent on the screen. The S4 is actually less saturated to the naked eye on movie mode than the iPhone 5 on quite a lot of media. On certain images such as Avatars (blue Aliens from the movie), browsing through Facebook etc. Admittedly certain colours (red) seem slightly stronger on the S4, though overall it's not over saturated comparatively at all. I sincerely recommend any of you walk in to a store and set an S4 to movie mode and compare with an iPhone 5 yourself. Add to that, there are no burn in problems. So no idea where that one came from, at least on the S3/S4 anyway.
I find the LCD vs AMOLED comparison to be very reminiscent of Plasma vs LCD. The latter has better whites and is brighter, while AMOLED has better blacks (perfect blacks), contrast and viewing angles. Personally I'd take AMOLED all day, since to me black levels are one of the most important things in media viewing, and the screen modes (movie, Adobe RGB etc) exist for a reason.
Boogalogist
Member
Not sure why people are complaining about the interface of S4 or some features. And DAT SUPER AMOLED+ HD.....OMFG...that screen is fucking GORGEOUS. I'd even take S2's AMOLED over some glorified LCD screen any day.
C'mon, it's an Android...don't like the stock interface? change it. Don't like stock browser, change it. Don't like this or that, change it. Customize the shit out of it. I'm definitely rooting the phone and doing it to mine. I'm not that fond of TouchWiz either.
The flexibility is exactly why I chose Android over iOS. iOS is just too restrictive.
And damn, what about that 13 mp camera? it's a damn good camera for a phone. This 13mp camera itself pushed me to choose the S4 instead of the HTC One.
C'mon, it's an Android...don't like the stock interface? change it. Don't like stock browser, change it. Don't like this or that, change it. Customize the shit out of it. I'm definitely rooting the phone and doing it to mine. I'm not that fond of TouchWiz either.
The flexibility is exactly why I chose Android over iOS. iOS is just too restrictive.
And damn, what about that 13 mp camera? it's a damn good camera for a phone. This 13mp camera itself pushed me to choose the S4 instead of the HTC One.
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