SAMSUNG GALAXY S4
Price: Rs 41,490
Specs: 5 inch HD display; Android v4.2.2; 1.6GHz quad core processor + 1.2GHz quad-core processor; 2GB RAM; 13 MP camera; Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, A-GPS; 132 grams; 2600 mAh battery
Rating: 4/5 DESIGN: Over the years, Samsung has learned to
develop a good smartphone loaded with loads of proprietary software. But the company still fails big time with product design.
Where
players like Apple, HTC and Sony are using metal chassis for crafting gorgeous looking smartphones, Samsung is still stuck with plastic. Along with the run-off-the-mill design, the SG4 has got a polycarbonate (plastic) back panel, which feels like a cheap piece of plastic.
Everyone thought we were testing an S3, though on closer look you can see that the phone is slightly thinner and sleeker than its predecessor. Thankfully, the phone isn't uncomfortable to hold despite the 5-inch Full HD Super Amoled display. The home key is flanked by capacitive touch keys for option and back that illuminate when required.
The only classy design element is the chrome bezel, but this too seems prone to dents. At the back sits a 13 MP camera with an LED flash on the top and a small speaker at the bottom.
PHOTO: Associated Press
The Samsung Galaxy S4 runs the latest Android version 4.2.2 and comes
with the TouchWiz Nature UX that lets one add shortcuts to the lock screen for directly launching apps. Along with the ripple effect of the Galaxy S3, Samsung has now added a new light effect that triggers when the finger hovers or touches the screen.
The notification bar comprises almost all shortcuts to the most commonly used settings. Plus, an icon on the top brings all shortcut icons on the same page, instead of just showing five settings in a single row and then swiping left to access the left over icons.
This makes it convenient to turn-on/off the settings without visiting the main settings icon. Long pressing the home key launches app switcher whereas double pressing it enables S-Voice functionality. Long pressing the menu key launches Search.
PHOTO: Associated Press
Samsung
has worked hard around the software and it shows in the phone's new features. The Smart Scroll feature can be used for scrolling the web page or email up and down without touching the display. It works according to the angle at which we tilt the phone.
The Smart Pause comes across as a handy feature while watching videos and pauses when we look away from the screen. It resumes when we look back. The much talked about Air View feature on the Samsung Galaxy Note II has made its way to the SG4 as well, but here it works with the finger. Hovering the finger over the image gallery or an email or a message shows a preview.
Air Gesture helps in changing images in the gallery
just by waving the hand over the phone's display, eliminating the need to touch the display. There is also a group play where a song can be played on multiple GS4s from a single phone and S-Translator for translating text and voice from different languages. While there are plenty of such innovative features on the SG4, we only ended up using them once for testing.
PHOTO: Associated Press
The 13MP rear camera is very good in daylight conditions, but has an Achilles heel in low light. The still images captured in proper natural light had bright colours and details. But the ones shot at night were dark and had a lot of noise. Even the night mode in the settings wasn't of any help.
Samsung has borrowed its camera interface from the Galaxy Camera and we could toggle between various modes such as auto, night, HDR, drama, best face, erase, etc. The Drama mode captures multiple shots of the moving object, but with fast movements it failed to capture the image. The camera became a bit slow in focusing and capturing images when we tweaked the settings a bit forcing us to reset the camera.
We didn't have any complaints about the 1080p video recording.
PHOTO: Associated Press
The SG4 is a solid performer powered by powered by a set of two quad-core processors - 1.6GHz and 1.2GHz - that works together to give a great, flawless performance. The phone decides which processor is needed for a particular task or if both need to come into play. The processors are paired with a 2GB RAM. It easily handled multiple apps running in the background without any lag.
The S4 is a gamers' delight as we could smoothly play heavy graphic games on this phone. Amongst all the flagship smartphones we have reviewed, this scored the highest in most of the Synthetic benchmark tests. But continuous camera usage or couple of hours of gaming would result in the heating up.
PHOTO: Associated Press
The 2600 mAh battery struggled to last a day with all the above mentioned, fancy features turned on. When turned off, it gave easily gave us a day and a half with two email accounts, one Twitter account, Facebook, Whatsapp, browsing and downloading apps.
BAG IT OR JUNK IT: A good Android smartphone let down by the design and camera.
PHOTO: Associated Press 
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