My last day to decide (Galaxy S4 or iPhone 5)

[maximus96]

get the S4...64GB micro SD cards are about $50 these days...

 

[oplix]

My last day to decide (Galaxy S4 or iPhone 5)

Edit: yes 8gb is plenty for like 10 modern apps/games

 

[Peterg2]

This thread was started on June 5 and the OP advised it was his last day to decide. He advised on June 6 what his decision was. Almost 2 weeks later people are still flogging this?

 

[cnev3]

This thread was started on June 5 and the OP advised it was his last day to decide. He advised on June 6 what his decision was. Almost 2 weeks later people are still flogging this?

reassurance posts.

 

[mohalen]

iphone 5 to s4 back to iphone 5

Good points. I'm glad I kept the iphone. I always go back to it. Android is amazing and I wish I had a lot of android options on my iphone. But, there's always a better android phone coming out within weeks of the current big bad flagship. And the software updates are always a bit lagged by all the hands it has to pass trough before it gets to the phone.
Android also still just isn't as smooth of an os. That is definitely my opinion and may not be how everyone sees it. But when I'm typing a text (which is probably the thing I do the most with my phone), the keyboard just has a weird feel to the input. It's like it's just a little behind. Hit the lock button to wake up the phone and there's some animation that has to happen for the phone to show everything on the screen. There's just a lot of little things like that which drive me crazy. With the iPhone, I know I feel like I'm going to have a great performing phone for at least the 2 years I signed up for, and if I ever want to trade or sell it, which I usually do, it'll be in demand no matter how old it is.

Hi,
I do not know if you have gone back to the iphone 5 yet but I have had iphones since 3g and had a chance to try a galaxy s4 active and gave my iphone 5 to my mom. I know it is hard to compare years of iphone use to 2 weeks of android use but again like many have said the little things to me matter. I also say apple may be boring to some, cannot customize it, etc. however I say it works.
First the good about s4, the screen is nice, big and looks great. Yes the phone is customizable but in two weeks nothing blew my mind or that I was amazed and will miss it.

What I missed from my iphone: things worked like clicking on an app it would open up quickly vs android you can tell its thinking about it, trying to process it. Apps, so many more apps and ones I used a lot like downcast, tweetbot. I have not found a replacement for them on android and its driving me nutz! Also music players, oh how frustrating to try 6 different music players on droid and none of them compare to iphone player. I use that a lot too so that is another big deal for me, it may not be for some. Just some simple things on the iphone player like being able to switch from Bluetooth to phone speaker or w/e you want! Also being able to access the album you are listening to easily. Yes I get you have more customizing options on android yet again! on iphone it just worked well for me.

Another thing that is driving me nuts on s4 is that I cannot simply click an image and save it as I would on the iphone. Such a simple thing I do not understand why android does not have that. Some people have said they do or use another app/software to share it but why! I do not want to do that.
End story is, yes maybe I am conforming to apple products however I am ok with that as it works for me. It is not for everyone and we are thankful for options. Additional notes, batter life on iphone, well my iphone was much much better.

 

[deeddawg]

I also say apple may be boring to some, cannot customize it, etc. however I say it works.
First the good about s4, the screen is nice, big and looks great.

I tried out an S4 Active, coming from a 4S. Partly just to try it out, but I was looking for more screen real estate as well as hoping to try out wireless charging.

I chose the Active over the S4 for the screen; S4 screens were too dim and too "warm" (biased toward yellows/reds); the Active's display was more color neutral.

Bloatware. Holy frack I'd forgotten how bad carriers were with loading a bunch of cr@p on their phones.
Larger display was nice, yet disappointing. Video was nicer on the larger display, and the Kindle app made good use of the size too. Most everything else simply presented the same amount of content as my 4S, just using bigger fonts/icons/spacing.

I could get over various ecosystem related limitations (no iMessage, no Airplay, poor Reminders implementation even with 3rd party iCloud sync, etc.), I could tolerate the overly sensitive touchscreen edges (even with the extra sensitivity turned off), I could get over the complete absence of an Amazon Prime Instant Video app, but three key issues drove me to return the device:

• Wifi dropouts at work - wifi worked fine at home, but at work any apps seeking network access after a device wake-up would freeze until I toggled wifi off/on. iPhone 4S 100% solid with no issues. Having to screw with wifi is unacceptable, I should be able to just leave it on.
• Couldn't dial-by-voice via bluetooth without touching the phone; voice command of "dial 834-321-1234" resulted in a screen pop-up seeking confirmation. I shouldn't have to fish the phone out of my pocket, unlock the display, punch in my PIN, then confirm the command. Maybe that was configurable somewhere but I was just about ready to return the device due to:
• No lock screen notifications when using PIN device lock (work Activesync policy). Seems to be a Samsung thing; any changes to lock screen widgets were disallowed if PIN lock was active. If I deleted my work Exchange account, turned off PIN lock, and set up an alternate lock screen widget (tried a couple different ones) it was great until I added my Exchange account back, it forced PIN lock, and Samsung switched things back to the basic clock lock screen.

I bet these could have been solved with different ROMs, hacked applications, rooting the device, etc. Trouble is I have other things I'd rather spend my free time doing and there were no killer features or killer apps making me want the device badly enough to invest that time to make it conform to my usage requirements.

 

[mib1800]

What I missed from my iphone: things worked like clicking on an app it would open up quickly vs android you can tell its thinking about it, trying to process it. Apps, so many more apps and ones I used a lot like downcast, tweetbot. I have not found a replacement for them on android and its driving me nutz! Also music players, oh how frustrating to try 6 different music players on droid and none of them compare to iphone player. I use that a lot too so that is another big deal for me, it may not be for some. Just some simple things on the iphone player like being able to switch from Bluetooth to phone speaker or w/e you want! Also being able to access the album you are listening to easily. Yes I get you have more customizing options on android yet again! on iphone it just worked well for me.

What is wrong with the music player? S4/google music player has more sound mode/equaliser plays many more music format and it is much easier to load/share music.

Another thing that is driving me nuts on s4 is that I cannot simply click an image and save it as I would on the iphone. Such a simple thing I do not understand why android does not have that. Some people have said they do or use another app/software to share it but why! I do not want to do that.

Well, maybe you just had a short ftime hands-on, that's why you are not familiar enough. Just long press the image and select "save image" in the popup.

Additional notes, batter life on iphone, well my iphone was much much better.

To be more objective, the following published tests show s4 has better battery life:-

Iphone5 not even in top 3
http://blogs.which.co.uk/technology/phones-3/best-phone-battery-life-samsung-galaxy-note-2-s4/

Gsmarena endurance test
s4 - 69hrs
Ip5 -51hrs

http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-i9505-galaxy-s4-battery-tests-update-battery-life-improved/
http://blog.gsmarena.com/apple-iphone-5-battery-test-is-done-proves-itself-as-a-thin-powerhouse/