Samsung Galaxy S4 Battery - Pros & Cons

Battery - Pros & Cons

Pros


1. Battery capacity upgraded to 2,600mAh, up from 2,100mAh on the GS3.

2. A full day of moderate usage. From 8 hours to 14 or 15 hours of regular use out of the battery cells. With the screen's brightness ranging betwixt 50% and 75%, 4G switched on, and a few apps and services running in the background, you can get through a full day with moderate use.

3. Nine hours long continuous video playing at 40% to 50% brightness.

4. When the phone is not in use and is idling, it doesnt drain any considerable power.

5. Battery is removable. Can change batteries or more importantly, can pop in a more powerfull battery. On the other hand, when integrated batteries wear out and no longer holds a charge (or screen cracks, speakers fizzle out or you mess up your aux jack), you have to drop the phone. The HTC One is unrepairable.

6. 2,600mAh battery is removable. You can use a spare if you like. The spare battery will take the space of the charger. She said you dont carry both. If you actually carry one (charger), dont let her find out where you stop to refill it in the way back home.

7. If you stream HD Netflix videos constantly, mind that, it dies in about five hours during such a continuous catastrophe.

8. With Power Saving Mode, you can limit processor speed, screen power and haptic feedback.

9. You can controll display brightness directly from the notification bar. Thus the main power sucker can be controlled too easily.

10. S4 will last for seven hours during a continuous surfing period which include both text and images. Droid DNA manages for five hours and HTC One dies before five-hours.

11. Does not beat the Motorola RAZR HD. But better than the Sony Xperia Z.

12. Background syncing processes wont juice down battery like crazy.

13. To do mostly text based things like checking email accounts, social networks etc, it will give you a full day. In most cases, at the end of the day, you can manage to spare even 50% of the cells.

14. You can have your lunch. Not necessary to have the lunch and plug the phone to a socket at the same time and check out for bars.

15. The stand-by has had a substantial improvement.

16. Can be preserved avoiding 4G and keeping screen brightness down.

17. 17 hours of talk time.

18. A 30 minute music playing will drop battery by about 3% (Bluetooth headphones jacked in).

19. Streaming video over 4G for 30 continuous minutes (full brightness on), will drain down about 9% of the battery cells.

20. Downloading heavy media files, app files or games (ex: 10Mb) over 4G, will cost about 4% from the cells.

21. Camera features wont suck much. Taking couple of snaps and capturing videos of few minutes, are power efficient.

22. Apt for the regular usage of a modern citizen, starting the phone at 7am, browsing the web and tweeting for a couple of hours, two hour-long vanilla satellite navigation, Samsung's "Driving mode" turned on, he will get the last few drops of power by 5pm. A full day's considerable use of browsing, gaming, email checking reserves a bit for video playback on the way back home.

23. The battery can be wirelessly charged using a Qi standard special charging pad (sold separately) that utilizes magnetic resonance to produce a magnetic field through which power can be transferred.

24. Using the Sprint Galaxy S4 in New York City on 3G and 4G, one journalist managed to get 14 hours of normal use. It involved three hours of screen-on time, browsing and social networking over 3G, 4G and Wifi, and extensive use of the camera app. Half of that time he had the S4 set to automatic brightness. The rest of the time he manually adjusted the screen to between 50 and 75 percent brightness for improved visibility. "It's particularly impressive to see this kind of battery life given the variable network conditions we were up against on our CDMA/LTE Galaxy S4," he writes.

25. Automatic brightness.


Cons


1. Of all techs, Portable Power systems (I meant battery) evolve the slowest, the least. RAM or processing are progressing by leaps and bounds. Did I say something about S4?

2. A High Resolution 5- inch (full HD) display, a number of sensors, a plethora of advanced camera features, software gimmics and powerful processor cores will drain your battery more quickly.

3. Powered by a Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery which does not seem to be enough, as the processor is whopping eight cores.

4. The screen is the biggest culprit in the battery drain. 1080p SuperAMOLED display takes the grandest labour on the Galaxy S4's battery life (besides that, you wont notice any severe [6] battery drain in any of the bundled apps).

5. A marginal improvement in continuous video playing compared to other devices.

6. Air Gesture, Air View and Smart Scroll drain battery juice heavily.

7. Low or poor signal areas also contributes tremendously towards fast battery drainage.

8. Is not even close to RAZR MAXX HD in battery performance. Does not beat the Motorola RAZR HD. Its probably better than the Sony Xperia Z, but if you are after the battery life, go for RazrMaxxHD.

9. LTE will suck more power.

10. With heavy usage, you will have to recharge it after 6 to 8 hours.

11. Worst, "Takes" time to get it fully charged. Takes couple of hours to get a full charge.

12. The 1.6GHz Exynos 5 eight-core powered version of the phone was initially expected to hit the UK. Instead the 1.9GHz quad-core option will be shipped to British shores which lacks the battery saving enhancements promised by its eight-core sibling.

13. Heavy use with full brightness on and on 4G network - the most diabolic things turned on - it eats half of the battery within 3 hours.

14. Even the phone is used lightly, it wont make it to the night. It still needs a charge in the eve. Have to charge it every night in other words.

15. If "Heavy Use" meant 10% of the battery in fiction, you could be in the safe zone for 10 hours. But the most reported time from users for heavy usage is 5 hours.

16. You can save energy through few tricks. But If you switch off all the bells and whistles and other power suckers, what is left in your hands? Its just another Android smart phone. No longer what you paid for, S4!

17. Video playback and web browsing consumption has only been improved a bit.

18. Pack Mentality: Multiple back-up batteries, you may never use them even. When the phone is hagged and out of fashion, they will be just another pile of garbage. You cannot pop in a S4 battery into S5 or S6.

19. You get insurance with other unibody phones. If your battery goes out, they'll replace it for free.

20. Batteries usually last for 2 to 3 years. Can battery removability be an issue?

21. "I've been using cell phones for about 12 years now. Never had to replace a battery. I also have about 100 gigs of free online cloud storage," one user comments.

22. The widest selection of non-touch controls. Some of them are better than others and all of them consume battery like it's going out of fashion.

23. Integrated battery last longer because it is less affected by the environment and never really discharged.

24. Integrated batteries are more likely to be recycled with the phone than just sit in a drawer somewhere.

25. iPhone 4 replacement battery is between $8 to $15. Besides, you dont have to replace something until it breaks!.

Samsung Galaxy S4 - WatchOn Pros & Cons

WatchOn Pros & Cons - RockOn or WatchOn? (or WatchOut?)

Intro

1. WatchOn, the four-in-one power house is a universal remote control for home and office appliances (from TVs, DVDs and Blu-ray players, media streaming to airconditioners), a TV guide, an entertainment and a Netflix portal. Its a nifty control system for the entire home theater system in association with a built-in infrared port.

It combines S4 with TV service providers and remotely controlls appliances. Lists Programs, channels, lets pick shows and channels simply working as a remote in the meantime. Only thing it lacks is, it doesnt have a button to controll your children. Quite similar to "Peel" but customized. It asks your zip code and piles up a number of TV service providers in your region. A large database preinstalled, thus, out of the box functions.


Pros


TV


1. A universal TV portal. It houses descriptions of shows, popularities based on votes and their comments. You can cast your own vote and have your own saying.

2. Powered by Peel.

3. The setting up process is straightforward. You can instruct WatchON on which way you get your channels, from TV, set top box or cable. Then it inquires couple of questions and set up the controller to perform the task in the proper way.

4. Some providers let you change channels with TV remote. With some others, you have to use the set-top box remote for the same purpose. Most times, same goes for the audio output. Either have to use the TV to output the sound or an AV receiver. What a mess! Interestingly, it knows the nature of the messy home setups. The app will ask about your setup and present a unified remote control interface even if you have multiple hardware remotes to control all the devices. End of excruciating home setups.

5. Very brisk at getting the right codes for devices.

6. A new design and UI is enhanced.

7. Buy a brand new Samsung Smart TV, can wirelessly mirror from the TV to the phone (transfer live video from the TV to S4) over Wi-Fi network.

8. WatchON chooses programs for you.

9. You can see a full channel list, or a curated selection of TV shows and movies.

10. A very nifty "Peel" based search and recommendations for your cable box, Netflix, Blockbuster, and some other players in the industry. Not only Google is having an Algorhythm, it calculates your up votes and down votes you cast at shows and provides a personalized guide for shows based on your preferences. Great recommendations come from WatchOn or Netflix.

11. Convenient. Changing the channel is a breez of ease.

12. Bear the traits of Peel-based apps. The experience can be familiar.

13. Setting up can take some sweat. Errors may occure. Mostly, since it tunes itself to your TV set, cable box and sound system. But from then onwards, its cheese.

14. Categories.

15. Categorized by show titles, not by channels.

16. Can set favorites.

17. Can set reminders for upcoming favourites. It will remind you when show is "Now Showing."

18. You can also set reminders for shows you want to watch.

19. It has got a plethora of content than HTC One, specially the Video Hub implanting itself with its own zone inside the app.




Remote


1. Soon the remote controll world will be smart phone driven. The OEMs will deliver deep integrations to smart phone universal remote controll systems like WatchOn.

2. Devices are organized by rooms. Users can configure different rooms of their home or office with different device types allowing you to take the phone with you and still have it as a remote.

3. The remote control functionality is not demarcated to Samsung products. Recognizes products from other brands. Thus, eliminates the biggest barrier to most universal remote controls.

4. Functional and easy to set up. Can be connected to multiple entertainment systems without hassle or dazzle.

5. Get rid of messes of remotes.

6. A lock screen widget for the remote control potion of WatchOn. Can change a channel or turn the volume up or down from the lockscreen.

7. The remote control gets in in the notifications menu or on lockscreen as a widget. HTC One lacks this feature. The only phone that carry this besides S4 is Optimus G Pro.


Cons



1. The app is hard to navigate. It's good but not the best.

2. It wont connect to some Media boxes including those made by Samsung.

3. If you are trying it for the first time, mind that, it wont work properly. Give it a second try.

4. A too simple interface. Lacks more complex buttons or functions and only fewer buttons present.

5. The remote (of Galaxy S4) cannot compete with Logitech Harmony Touch.

6. WatchOn wont work with the Note 8.

7. Netflix portal wholly available. Just one hitch, those features's functionality depends on cable provider and equipment you use.

8. To get the best, out of Netelix features, you have to have a Google TV.

9. Peel dependant smart remote and listing apps debut on the HTC One and Galaxy Note 8.0. Thus, its not new.

10. At the initial steps of the setting up process, app tunes itself to your TV, cable box and sound system. So process undergoes trial and error.

11. Even when tested with a Samsung TV, TV’s inputs get mixed up.

12. Can't stream content you buy, wirelessly. Only possible way is, to a TV with a wired connection. Screen mirroring should be enabled.

13. HTC One wins in setting up process. Its mightier. Though S4 runs the process smooth, not all the functions are functional at the end of the day. You have to reset the codes.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Display - Pros & Cons

Display - Pros & Cons

Pros


1. Have you ever heard about a five inches screen that made headlines? With S4, you get one.

2. Its a 1920x1080 pixel, full HD, PenTile RGBG and 441.46 pixels per inch (441ppi) image density, 5-inch Super AMOLED backlit screen.

3. It's the same Super AMOLED technology used in other Galaxy smartphones, but this time it's been extended upto Full HD resolution, which is 1920 x 1080pixels.

4. The S4 features a high-definition Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 441 pixels per inch (ppi). Apple's iPhone 5 Retina display has a resolution of 326 ppi, thus sharper than the iPhone's 326ppi and only very slightly below the HTC One's 468ppi (though at 4.7-inch that's a smaller screen on the One).

5. The most distinguishable difference between it and the S3 is, it promptly makes the Samsung Galaxy S3 look dated and dull.

6. Although not the first phone to have a 1080p display, it is Samsung's first Full HD phone.

7. High contrast ratios on offer.

8. A new type of screen. Samsung has hooked in a mode to make the colours look more natural. This method does lower the brightness a bit. The hitch is that's already lower than the HTC One, but that extra brightness isn't required due to the contrast ratio it offers. [47]

9. It's bright, but wont burn your eyes. With most modern smart phone displays, you have to take care of your eye sight. S4 is not an eye burner or an oven but a smart phone that is selling like Hot Cakes.

10. Poor performance under direct sunlight, but not so timid under indoor light sources.

11. The screen is capable of sensing touches with gloves on. Not available on majority of phones.

12. The Blues look brighter.

13. Jet Blacks!

14. More pixels mean sharper images.

15. Different colour profiles in the settings menu.

16. Color accuracy is improved compared to early Super AMOLEDs.

17. No yellow or greenish discoloration in white areas.

18. A wider screen which means a wider keyboard and more space to type on.

19. A 1080p display and a pixel density of 441 per inch, more than required to get rid of any traits of pixelation.

20. A bigger and grand gaming experience on a smart phone.

21. A mini theater for movies.

22. HD TVs have the same resolution (whopping 5-inch display with Full HD resolution, the same amount of pixels you'd have seen on a TV).

23. The screen is super-sensitive which allows it to track your finger, even when it's hovering above, but not touching it.

24. The thin screen bezel makes it look as if the screen is coming out of the edge of the phone.

25. The air gap that fils the gap between the screen and the touch digitiser is drastically tiny. It makes it feel almost as if you're touching the colourful interface rather than the glass on top of it.

26. It's crisp and sharp. Text is crisp, colors are vibrant and blacks are deep.

27. Not even a single trace of pixelisation when having a closure look on application icons or text (no pixelated edges in the margins of the icons and text). From web pages to video, looks great. Large passages in Web pages are pleasurable to read.

28. 441 pixels per inch, text she sent is crystal clear but not the hell she means.

29. The Gorilla Glass 3 resides millimeters below the edge of the screen. This makes the screen less vulnerable than the GS3 (glass sits slightly above the edge in it). This will make your screen safer when dropped.

30. The Gorilla Glass 3 is based on a new glass composition. The third gen screen coating delivers increased impact and scratch resistance. The Galaxy S4 is actually harder to scratch than its predecessor.

31. Sony Z has same size screen. However, Sony Z's home, menu, and back buttons are part of the screen. It means the screen size is less than 5" while the S4 is realistically a jumbo 5".

32. An impressive contrast and perfect viewing angles make everything on the screen eye candy, regardless of your viewing angle.

33. An advanced capacitive touchscreen powered by Synaptics, also known as ClearPad. The all brand new "Synaptics ClearPad" detects finger from just 2cm away.

34. The ultra sensitivity makes it possible to use AirView without an S Pen, touch the screen while wearing gloves. And the good news is you can manage that extra sensitivity if you've activated the "extra sensitivity mode" in the settings.

35. S Pen doesnt work on S4s. It lacks a Wacom digitizer. But C-Pens and other capacitive styluses would do the trick.

36. The 441-pixels-per-inch resolution compensates for the weaknesses of the PenTile Matrix to a certain extent.

37. Can change the brightness from the very notification bar.

38. You can let the Auto Brightness mode to optimize the brightness for you.

39. The Auto Brightness mode even lets the user to customise the auto level. Salubrious for the battery life.

40. You are well guided through your two centimeters away finger hoverings, a light flickers under your finger.

41. High-definition images are a please to see.

42. Colours are rich and bold.

43. The resolution of the S4 display is comparable to that of the iPhone 5's Retina display.

44. A bigger screen is also better for viewing charts, portfolio list, and company snapshots.

45. Dont have to worry about the tints of the previous version.

46. Samsung making over-saturated screens is a thing of the past.

47. The color saturation is way beyond the reach of any LCD on the market. It makes even the gloomiest image appear majestically vibrant. Besides, if you are not a guy of the oversaturated look of AMOLEDs, Samsung provides you an option to slow down the saturation to more down to earth levels. There's a dedicated Adobe RGB setting that gets this done. So you can relish both of the worlds.

48. The structure of the PenTile matrix has been changed too. Now green sub-pixels are twice as many as blue and red sub-pixels, and the arrangement is changed as well. Thankfully, the 441 ppi pixel density makes sure you won't be able to spot much the hated cross-hatch pattern.

49. Its whopping 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution. That's Full HD and an impressive boost from the 720p display of the Galaxy S3.

50. The touchscreen controller, a Synaptics S5000B is the chip which is responsible for the S4's super-sensitive touchscreen, which even works with gloves, is hiding behind the screen.

51. The level of color toned down from the GS3. Images match the natural color reproduction of the HTC One.

52. Screen's overall brightness and color quality is as good as on any AMOLED display, including the Galaxy Note 2.

53. It's not as high resolution as the HTC One, because it's larger with the same amount of pixels, but when viewed closely, viewer struggles to find any flaw with it.

54. Where lies the strengths of OLED? When a pixel is displaying a black image, it's completely off, thus consumes less power and looks darker. On contrary, LCD screens have a backlight to light the colours in front which means that the blacks will never be as black as found on an OLED.

55. Truly, the colours look too strong on the device thanks to the OLED technology used.