Samsung Galaxy S4

We’re not even halfway through the year, yet the stage is set for a clash of the titans. First, we had only the Apple iPhone 5, released late last year which had enthusiasts and fanboys gushing over it till the Apple Maps fiasco came into light. Since then, there has been the brand new BlackBerry Z10, the super-sturdy HTC One and the latest entrant, the Samsung Galaxy S4.

We’ve experienced the previous three iterations and each has played a significant part in the smartphone revolution. Each Galaxy super-smartphone released has been deemed as the iPhone killer for that generation. This time, however, the Samsung Galaxy S4 had to contend not just with the Apple iPhone but the HTC One as well. Does it prove its mettle?

The basics

Since the first Galaxy that was released, most tech enthusiasts as well as common buyers intermittently complained that the devices just seem too fragile and ‘plasticky’. When company officials were asked about the build quality of the Galaxy S4, they just reiterated that the device is made with a polycarbonate body and left it at that. Given the fact that most users now believe that the aesthetics of a device is as important, if not more, as the functionality, Samsung might not be the device which is designed to impress, especially when compared to the build quality of the likes of the Apple iPhone 5 and the HTC One. Undoubtedly, it has a super-slim profile and is extremely light-weight, but half the time you’re just wondering if it’ll survive the accidental fall off your desk.

Brighter than the sun

The Galaxy S4 comes with a massive 5-inch screen with a Super AMOLED display, which is brighter and more vibrant than any smartphone screen you’d have set eyes on. While this is quite captivating in the first couple of minutes, I had to tone it down to almost the lowest brightness to be able to read and play games on it for long hours. The brightness auto-adjust (Smart Adapt) was on for a while, but that again was a bit erratic. It’d change brightness levels sometimes abruptly, sometimes drastically and sometimes too late after I had changed media on the device.

The pull-down notification bar on the homepage of the S4 gives you shortcuts to more than 15 settings, starting from Wi-Fi, mobile data to Screen Mirroring and Drive Mode. Except for when I had to uninstall a couple of apps, I never had to go to the main settings to tweak any of these functions.

Gesture support

If there’s one thing that doesn’t get stagnant with every new model in the Galaxy S series, it’s the innovation. There are more than a couple of features that the company has packed in the Galaxy S4 which add a certain edge to the handset. Take for example, the Air Gesture feature. The handset has a sensor which can detect your hand gestures in front of the screen. So when I was reading a long-ish article on the web browser, I didn’t have to physically scroll down. I just had to swipe my hand from bottom-up and the page would move accordingly. You can do this while browsing documents, photographs, sorting through your music and videos and so on. There’s another feature which can potentially do away with any gesture at all to execute a similar function – the Smart Scroll. Here, the sensor tracks your eye movement while you reading an article and automatically jumps to the next page when it thinks you’ve reached the bottom of the page. I had this on, by default, when I started reviewing the unit. But more often that not, it did not gauge accurately whether I was really done with the page I was on.

Typing woes

One of the bigger disappointments with the Galaxy S4 was its keyboard. I’ve been using a couple of handsets over the last couple of months, including the HTC One. But the keyboard on the S4 was by far the most prone to errors while typing. I’m not exactly a lightning-fast texter, but even with average speeds and decent accuracy (with respect to which key I was pressing), I still landed up with typos for every three-four words or so. In sometime, it just made more sense to switch to Swyping instead. And that of course was a pretty satisfactory experience.

The Galaxy S4 comes with a speaker on the rear panel and although volume levels were pretty decent for entertaining yourself, you really have to plug in headphones to catch every dialogue or just for better insulation.

There were a couple of times when the handset froze on me – to be more accurate, shut itself down and restarted without any warning. This happened mostly when I just launched apps such as Camera or Subway Surfer. The handset comes with 2GB RAM, which took care of all the multi-tasking and gaming that we indulged in. But we had no idea why the phone would shut itself down at least once in four days or so. The battery lasted us quite long on a full charge. It definitely did not spill over to two days of charge but at the end of a working day it would still have some juice left to run on, despite a lot of Subway Surfer and email activity over a Wi-Fi network.

Final word

Comparing the Samsung Galaxy S4 to the likes of the HTC One and Apple iPhone 5 is inevitable. The Galaxy S4 is now the company’s flagship product and all three smartphones are more or less priced similarly. Having said that, whether you should go for the S4 or not depends on how much you value functions over aesthetics. It packs in a lot more soft features than the HTC One and the Apple iPhone 5. How many of them you’ll actually use everyday is open for discussion. But at least you have a ton of features at your disposal, whenever you might need them. If build quality and the idea of durability are precious to you, then you might be a bit put off by the plastic build of the S4. HTC One and Apple iPhone 5 definitely translate the idea of sophistication and strength much better than the S4 does. As far as handling tasks and basic functionalities are concerned all three seem to take care of it fairly well. However, if you are already a Samsung loyalist, this is probably a purchase you won’t regret for some time to come.

Rs 41,900

Love – Ample gesture support, vivid display, decent battery life,

Hate – Build quality, occasional freezes

mahananda.bohidar@thehindu.co.in

The balancing act

BlackBerry Z10

BlackBerry’s new Z10, launched nearly a couple of months back in India as the new flagship smartphone, and is also the first full touchscreen phone from the manufacturer. When we reviewed the smartphone two months ago, we were stunned by how well this phone balances the user’s personal and professional smartphone usage. The screen is a 4.2-inch one which supports a resolution of 768 x 1280 pixels, and hence has a dense 335 pixels packed in per inch of the screen. So this package goes way beyond reading just emails, and is good enough to watch 720p HD videos on the move. But what really defines the Z10 is the host of new features on it. BlackBerry Hub is that one feature that sorts everything for you. All your synced email addresses, texts, call logs, BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now WhatsApp (yes, it’s there now) are sorted in one pane that can be revealed by a swipe, from wherever you are on the phone. Speaking of swipes, the Z10 (and by extension BB10) has a new interface. There are no physical or touch buttons like Home and Back (except for the power/sleep button, volume rocker and voice control buttons on the top and spine). Everything is navigated by swipe gestures. If you think it might be complicated, it’s not – in fact, it is by far one of the most sensible and uncomplicated user interfaces we have ever seen.

The Z10 also has a few camera tricks – it has something called the Time Lapse mode, where the camera starts detecting and clicking faces a few microseconds before the actual shutter release. This lets you select from the frame where the subject’s eyes are open, or has the widest smile. Otherwise, the camera is a decent performer.

Once you set up your work email, the Z10 automatically lets you manage two profiles, one for work, and one for everything else. This feature’s called BlackBerry Balance. And work stuff can also be password protected.

And for those who’re worried how the QWERTY touch keyboard is – it’s probably the best one around. Even on this screen size, the keys are well spaced. The keyboard also learns quickly and is very intuitive. The Z10 runs on a dual-core 1.5GHz chip and has a massive 2GB RAM, and together, they give a very free flowing experience. We never encountered any lags or freezes.

At the time of our initial review, our demo handset had not received the software update, and the battery was a major disappointment. With the update, however, the battery performance has improved drastically and now gives nearly 20 hours of usage (between 3G and WiFi usage).

We say – The Z10 is a must have for the mobile professional who also needs to be in touch with family, friends and be entertained on the move. The app store was deficient in the beginning, but all major apps are soon catching up. It is a little pricey, undoubtedly, but this is BlackBerry’s re-entry into planet premium!

Rs 42,490

Love – Awesome new features, best touchscreen typing experience

Hate – BlackBerry World is app deficient, average camera

Fan-tastic!

Apple iPhone 5

There are normal fans, and there are hardcore fans. And the there are Apple fans, who would swear such loyalty to the company, that they would stick to it no matter what. This is primarily the reason why the iPhone 5 is still a very popular smartphone even after initially underwhelming launch.

On the outside, there the phone is taller, slimmer and lighter than the predecessor, but is definitely smaller than the Galaxy S4 and HTC One. It is around the same size as the Z10, only, the screen is a bit brighter. The iPhone 5’s form factor makes a huge difference with the ergonomics. Handling the phone is very different from the competitors, in terms of using the keyboard, watching videos and even playing games.

The iPhone 5 is marginally faster with the new Apple A6 chipset (1.2GHz dual-core) and is complemented with a 1GB RAM . This makes the CPU blazingly fast. Not that the OS couldn’t handle the pressure before, but iOS 6 and these specs make the UI flow extrememly smoothly, and processes aren’t choppy at all. Processing is one area where iOS and iPhone 5 trumps Android and HTC and Samsung. The touchscreen too, feels much more sensitive now and is very responsive.

The rear-camera, however, is still the 8 meg iSight camera as on the iPhone 4S, but results look much better on the iPhone 5 owing to a better screen. But the fact remains that this camera is beaten by the cameras on HTC One and the Nokia Lumia 920 by a huge margin.

The iPhone 5 also uses a new port, named by Apple as the Lightning port, which is smaller and much more convenient than the old 30-pin port, as it’s two-sided and charges a little faster as well.

While the smaller screen means a little less power consumption than the massive Androids, one still misses the big AMOLEDs and Super LCDs to devour HD content.

But what Apple really excels at, is using the ecosystem optimally. With iOS 6 on the new iPad and OS X Mountain Lion, users can share content between devices much more easily. You get cloud tabs, amongst all things, which is one of the best things to have if you are an avid surfer but sometimes do not have the luxury of time. The addition of NFC would’ve definitely opened up a world of accessories to tap (pun intended), but somehow Apple thinks the time isn’t ripe yet.

We say – If you have an iPhone already, or have an iPad, MacBook or iMac, it just makes so much more sense to get an iPhone 5. And of course, you also get access to Apple’s treasure trove of apps. What you do not get is a decent map application – Apple Maps have been certified as disaster by now.

Rs 42,000 onwards

Love – Lightweight, decent battery life

Hate – Apple Maps

The Unlikely Stunner

HTC One

HTC One’s success can be compared to the like of a Hollywood debutante winning the Oscar for Best Actress. Launched just a couple of months ago, the HTC One has a handful of factors working to its credits. The huge 4.7-inch display looks classy and is built to survive with its full metal back panel. In an attempt to get users to stay updated with news and social activity, the company has dedicated the home screen to BlinkFeed – a matrix of tiles displaying stories and news regarding your areas of interest. You can pick your favourite topics or media channels and follow all that’s happening, live on the homescreen. HTC’s 4-meg number might not look impressive, but the camera definitely is. Plus, the stunning honesty wins the company some brownie points. The smartphone takes really nice shots in dimly-lit conditions apart from delivering crisp pictures otherwise. While HTC Zoe – the functionality that makes your still images move – is more a party trick than anything else, it’s still a pretty fun one. The smartphone comes equipped with Beats Audio coupled with HTC’s proprietary BoomSound, which includes front-facing stereo speakers with a dedicated amplifier. While the max volume levels on the device might not be the loudest I’ve come across on a smartphone, the quality of audio streamed from the speakers is really nice. One of the few downsides to the handset is the fact that it gets really heated up if you are streaming media on it while it’s on charge. The HTC One is powered by a 1.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor and comes with a 2,300 mAh battery. Despite the big screen and fairly continuous usage with Wi-Fi on, the handset kept me company for almost 10-11 hours in a day. On the Quadrant Standard test, the HTC One scored the highest we’ve seen any smartphone score, with a mind-boggling 9,009 points.

We say – Among all the super-smartphones vying for your attention - and your money - in the market, HTC One is the most unpretentious. It’s sturdy, packs in features which don’t overlook functionality and a couple of fun party tricks as well!

Rs 42,900

Love – Sturdy build, great camera, powerful processor

Hate – BlinkFeed as a permanent fixture, too ‘tall’ a design

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