Galaxy S4

[Jr Mouse]



I dunno about that. People on tech sites are clamoring for them on desktops. And Retina is certainly helping push the masses there.

But right now, the actual masses are still buying low res displays in droves. My dad had a dell laptop in the late 90s (PIII era) that had a higher pixel density than basically everything dell sells today. When people do get high res displays, they complain that all the text is too small, then they run it at non-native resolution so everything looks blurry.

Its not like the hardware can't drive it. Integrated video on an i3 can push 2560x1440 without hesitation. Put that on a typical 23" display, and you've got pretty nice pixel density (I mean, it looks great at 27" and would be as good as the eye can see at 23"). The OS and applications are the real problem. Both OSX and Win7 (probably 8 too) do very well natively with high res displays...but 80% of the applications suck. And honestly, I spend all day looking at applications not the base OS.

Also, websites get kind of messed up. You can blow up the text, but unless you enlarge the images as well, all of the fancy CSS alignment breaks. Blowing up the images works fine, but they can get blurry depending on how much you enlarge them.

Well there will always be a part of the "masses" who buy the cheapest options on the market. Those low cost options will be the last to make the switch. More so on PC as Apple will be the first and perhaps only computer maker to put these types of screens across the line. There will always be some cheap Chinese PC maker who will push a lower resolution rig at absurdly low prices.

The current 27 inch iMac already has a 2560 x 1440 screen and Apple's Retina Macbook Pro is 2560 x 1600 for a screen that's only 15 inches. We can be assured that the resolution on a Retina iMac at 21.5 or 27 inches will be much higher than the number you quoted above to retain a similar PPI to be marketed as Retina at those sizes.

Keep in mind that Retina for Apple doesn't just mean "high res," but is focused around a density that allows for the typical human eye to be unable to distinguish individual pixels at a certain viewing distance.

I agree that the web has not caught up to these high resolutions. It will happen as technology improves and evolves.

Sorry to drive the thread off topic. Just wanted to make these points.

S4 looks nice, but honestly if I was in the market for an Android phone I would take a long hard look at the HTC One Google Play Edition.

 

[otc]

Grrr, *India* has an S4 Mini price and release schedule and still nothing for the US?

 

[Fuuma]



The new iPhone should treat you fine then. Unless, of course, you develop the same glitch I did on Monday that makes my battery discharge completely in about four hours.

The S4 is bigger. Holding m I-5 over Mrs. Piob's S4 and her screen is about the size of my entire phone. One way I-5 wins is the metal case feels good in the hand vs. the plastic of the S4. Mrs. Piob is a bit of a computer nerd though and has her new phone customized to hell and back. I do miss being able to customize.

Got the s4 anyway, will see in a week if I switch to iphone5 but the low weight is nice, surface is slightly big and functions are cool but require a lot of tweaking, I'll see in a couple days.

shibbel: I must say I didn't look at the htc one, I was recently in Seoul so Samsung brainwashing must be working.

 

[iamacyborg]

Got the S4 after I lost my S3 last weekend. Pretty much just more of the same, though I like S Health.

 

[Piobaire]



Got the s4 anyway, will see in a week if I switch to iphone5 but the low weight is nice, surface is slightly big and functions are cool but require a lot of tweaking, I'll see in a couple days.

shibbel: I must say I didn't look at the htc one, I was recently in Seoul so Samsung brainwashing must be working.

Interested to hear if you keep it or not.

 

[hopkins_student]

Just ordered a 32gb black S4 from Verizon. As soon as it arrives I'm rooting it and turning it into a Google Play edition.

 

[otc]



Just ordered a 32gb black S4 from Verizon. As soon as it arrives I'm rooting it and turning it into a Google Play edition.

Can you do that? If so, why ever buy the google play edition?

I'm starting to come around to the S4. The mini doesn't look to be moving toward the US and the S4 is thin enough that I think it would still fit ok on a tight pants pocket. Would still be annoying that you can't reach the top of the phone with your thumb when holding it wiht one hand (with your thumb in position to be using the swype keyboard).

I like the case/hardware of the HTC One, but the lack of a menu button is WTF...and I'm not crazy about sense.

 

[Fuuma]

So what do you use to do local backups? Is there a good program to do it for contacts and everything else important?

 

[otc]

Local backups for contacts and stuff? I've always just let my phones be synced to a google account.
My images sync to dropbox with the dropbox app when I am on wifi.

I've used Titanium Backup--might require root to be useful, don't have to have a custom rom, just root (which I think is easy on the S4). It pretty much lets you back up anything you want, but I don't even have it on my phone right now since all I care about are contacts and photos which are already synced. Don't really mind much if I lose my text messages and I can't think of any apps I have that actually store important data.

 

[dah328]

Just ordered a 32gb black S4 from Verizon. As soon as it arrives I'm rooting it and turning it into a Google Play edition.

Can you do that? If so, why ever buy the google play edition?

The Google Play edition is not available subsidized on a carrier contract. Said another way, you can use it while freely switching carriers as you prefer. Hopkins_student is presumably obligated to stick with Verizon for the next 24 months. That's especially useful if you're one of those people that is always upgrading to the latest phone. Btw, switching from a regular to Google Play edition is also possible with the HTC One.

 

[shibbel]



Local backups for contacts and stuff? I've always just let my phones be synced to a google account.
My images sync to dropbox with the dropbox app when I am on wifi.

I've used Titanium Backup--might require root to be useful, don't have to have a custom rom, just root (which I think is easy on the S4). It pretty much lets you back up anything you want, but I don't even have it on my phone right now since all I care about are contacts and photos which are already synced. Don't really mind much if I lose my text messages and I can't think of any apps I have that actually store important data.

He could also just go with Google Drive, you get something like 15GB to play with for all the Google services. I think Dropbox is something like 4-5GB.

I use the ON{X} app along with the onx.ms website to set automatic backups of photos and stuff to Drive.

 

[iamacyborg]



So what do you use to do local backups? Is there a good program to do it for contacts and everything else important?

Samsung themselves have a pretty good app that backs up all your contacts and SMS messages, amongst other things. Then you can use Dropbox or G+ to automatically upload your pics.

 

[hopkins_student]

Loving this ****.

 

[shibbel]

Did you root it already?

 

[hopkins_student]

Yes.And running a bet slightly modified version of stock Android. But not the least bit of Touchwiz remains.