First thoughts on the Samsung GALAXY S4

The Samsung Galaxy S4 (or Samsung Galaxy S IV) was released today. It was released in New York, which meant that here in Australia it was released at around nine or ten in the morning, which coincided with when I was at work. I got out of work at eleven today but missed the opportunity to watch the Samsung presentation live on YouTube.

The Galaxy S4 is nothing surprising. It pretty much looked exactly like the leaked pictures. The hardware specifications are what were expected. It has a five-inch super AMOLED display with full HD, 1080p at 440ppi. The display size and pixel density matches phones like the Xperia Z and HTC One but what is great about Samsung phones are the fact they use AMOLED displays rather than conventional IPS LCD displays. AMOLED displays give deeper blacks and more vivid and bright colours. Some people do not like th vividness of AMOLED displays, saying it is unrealistic. It's a matter of preference which one you prefer, but I prefer AMOLED.

The Galaxy S4 has an unprecedented Exynos 8-core processor. The octacore processor has four performance cores and four economy cores. When performing power-intensive tasks like gaming or watching videos, the performance cores are used whereas the economy cores are used when you are engaged in mundane tasks like web browsing. Along with the 2 GB of RAM, this allows the S4 to achieve an unprecedented 26,000 score on the AnTuTu benchmark, which is 6,000 higher than the runner up HTC Buttery's 20,000 score. This makes the Galaxy S4 the fastest and most powerful smartphone yet.

There are numerous other features on the S4, far too much to digest in this blog post. Many people claim that these features are not "proper innovation," or evolutionary rather than revolutionary features. But this is subjective. I happen to believe the octacore processor and AMOLED screen are highly innovative, but others may not think so. Many believe Apple's first smartphone, with touchscreen-only input and apps was innovative, but closer inspection reveals they are evolutions of Microsoft handheld devices like the Palm Pilot. Apple simply improved the specs and marketed the product very well.

In my opinion, the Galaxy S4 is technologically superior to any other phone on the market today. Where the S4 is criticized heavily is in the plastic material is uses for its body. Samsung have good reasons for using plastic. For one, it absorbs shock better, which means dropping it will damage it less compared to, say, a glass phone like the fragile Nexus 4. Metal phones, such as the iPhone 5 or HTC One, tend to scratch easily. Most people, when they buy a metal or glass phone, put a plastic case on it anyway for the very reason that they don't want to damage the metal or glass. Premium material is only a concern for those with so much money that, if they crack a glass phone or scratch a metal phone, they can simply afford to buy another one. Many people, when criticizing Samsung phones, refer to the "build quality." I hate it when people use this term because plastic Samsung phones don't break. The plastic actually improves its build quality. Instead of using the term "build quality," we should call it what it is and use the term "snob appeal." Samsung's plastic phones are technologically superior to any other phone out there, but lack snob appeal because plastic is perceived to be cheap and nasty.

That said, I do not mind owning a nice-looking phone. The benefit of Android is variety. For those who want glass, there is the Sony Xperia Z, which is by far the prettiest phone yet. For those who want aluminum, get the HTC One. For those who want value for money, get the Nexus 4.