Review: The Samsung Galaxy S4 and its closest competitors

What Mobile took a look at how Samsung’s new flagship, the Galaxy S4, compared with its closest competitors (and siblings)

THE GALAXY S3

Effectively the Galaxy S4’s little brother, the older model still packs a punch and is arguably the better bet.

Looks-wise, the S4 is pretty much exactly the same, only slightly upsized; both phones have the large white rectangular display with rounded edges and the main central button. The S3 is the same height and is ever so slightly wider than the S4, but noticeably heavier (although only 3g more) and its 4.8 inch screen is slightly smaller than the S4’s 5 inches; when in a bag, it takes two glances to tell which phone is which.

Both devices unfortunately feature the plasticky back which has been much criticised for feeling like it will crack if dropped.

On screen, the difference is instantly noticeable thanks to the S4’s amped up display, with 1080 x 1920 pixels featuring a huge 441 pixels per inch, compared with the S3’s 720 x 1280 pixels with 306 pixels per inch. The S3’s screen, however, is not to be sneezed at; the flagships are definitely pushing the envelope when it comes to display clarity and colours, but the S3 still has a decent screen with rich colour and clear images. Speaking of colour, both the S4 and S3 seem to suffer from a slight overblown effect, with colours appearing a little too rich at times.

The S3 isn’t wonderfully hardy; our review copy has a few dents, cracks and scratches, particularly on the silver framing, but the screen is still pristine, most likely thanks to its Gorilla Glass 2.   The battery in particular on the S3 is impressive and lasts beyond its billed 3G talk time of about 12 hours.

The S3 is no slow poke either; its running with an Exynos quad core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9 chipset with 1GB RAM, which is a decent amount of heft although nothing mind-blowing these days; however I’ve never experienced lag with the S3 when running games, playing video or switching between applications, so it beats its brother in terms of reliable performance.

The S3’s 8MP camera is definitely a step down from the S4, although both don’t perform very well in poorly lit situations. The S3 camera photos are less clear and don’t have the crisp nature or level of detail that the S4’s manage.

The S3 runs the Touch Wiz interface with Android upgradeable to 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) and this runs smoothly without a hitch. It’s an intuitive interface with many of the same hiccups as the S4; for example some of the same bloatware.

The S3 is currently selling for around £20 a month on contract or £350 on Pay As You Go ‘ that’s roughly £200 cheaper than the S4 for a phone that does an excellent job.

SONY XPERIA Z

The two new flagships from Sony and Samsung are powerful machines; they both have top of the line specs so the difference comes down to how they handle it and their proprietary software.

First off, the devices couldn’t look more different. The Xperia Z is a black slab which looks rather like a brick when held up for a phone call, measuring in at 139 x 71mm, and 7.9mm thick with a five inch screen.   It’s much heavier than the S4 at 146g, but it looks sleek thanks to its tempered glass and does feel incredibly sturdy, although there are some odd design choices in its ugly protruding power button and main speaker at bottom right, which becomes muffled when taking calls. However, the Xperia Z, when reviewed, survived wear and tear without a scratch.

One of the stand out features of the Xperia Z was the sheer power it was packing under its hood and it certainly beats the S4 in this department, running a Snapdragon S4 Pro Krait quad core 1.5 GHz chipset with 2GB RAM. While its clock speed is not as high as the S4’s, its RAM is and the phone was a powerhouse in practice ‘ there was no lag when browsing, viewing videos or performing more intensive tasks like playing games. Loading content was also smooth.

Another area where Sony got it right was the Xperia Z’s screen resolution. The screen comes in at 1920 x 180 pixels resolution with 443 ppi, slightly more pixels per inch than the S4, but its clarity is razor sharp and colours pop without looking overblown, most likely thanks to Sony’s proprietary software. The Xperia Z and the S4 are very close in the screen resolution department, but the Xperia Z takes the prize for its superfine detail and colour management. Its 13.1MP camera ran well, with clear pictures and fine detail, although it too struggled with low light situations.

Something that both Sony and Samsung fell down on a tad was their user interfaces; bloatware occurred on both, and the Xperia Z interface in particular was initially a bit confusing, with Sony apps littered around the device.   The Xperia Z runs Jelly Bean (Android 4.1.2).

Both the S4 and the Xperia Z did well when it came to battery life ‘ the Xperia Z lived up to its billed 14 hours of talk time with 3G and the S4 made it past this mark as well.

In all, I have to say I was more impressed by Sony’s Xperia Z than the S4, but it was close.   Plus, Samsung’s flagship does have the fun of its software innovations and camera capabilities; it’s just hard to beat the powerful performance and good looking screen of the Xperia Z. The handset is on offer for less than the S4 on Pay As You Go for £450.

APPLE IPHONE 5

Apple’s flagship is actually a little dated now, having been released in September last year and there’s a new iPhone rumoured to be on the horizon.

What Mobile’s review at its release was five stars; and spec-wise, the phone matches up to the S4 in several respects.

Firstly, if you’re keen on that kind of thing, it’s much lighter, nearly 18g, and ever so slightly thinner at 7.6mm.   Apple, like Samsung, stuck with its branded look of the metal casing and central indented button, so no surprises design-wise, apart from the frankly irritating addition of the Lightning port, which meant all previous iPhone accessories, including charges, won’t work with the iPhone 5, so Apple loses out to Samsung there.

The iPhone 5 offers a 4-inch screen, and while it’s been argued that five inches is too large for a hand held device, four inches feels ever so slightly too small. However, What Mobile’s review noted that the screen gave the iPhone 5 a larger canvas without impeding day to day mobility. The iPhone’s screen resolution is much lower than the S4’s at 640 x 1136p, but its camera is pretty darn close, spec-wise, at 8MP with 3264×2448 pixels, and as we’ve all been told many times, camera quality is not down to megapixel count. Images taken with the iPhone 5’s camera from What Mobile’s review are clear, with good colour, and while not on a par with the S4’s offering, still offer a decent mobile camera option.

The iPhone 5 runs with a dual core 1.2 GHz A6 processor with 1GB, which is slow compared with the S4’s quad core chipset; What Mobile’s benchmark test in September showed the iPhone was faster than rivals, barring the Samsung S3, so the S3’s successor would likely blow the iPhone out of the water in terms of power.

Battery wise, the iPhone 5 is billed to give you eight hours of talk time, compared with the S4’s 14 hours, and the iPhone doesn’t have an expandable memory card option, meaning you’re stuck with the amount of memory whichever model you buy has (it also doesn’t have NFC chips, which put a stoppers on the march of progress many had been predicting for the wireless information transferral technology).

The iPhone 5 still costs from £500 with Pay As You Go ‘ that’s quite expensive for a lower specced phone, considering it’s only £50 cheaper than the S4.

For the full Galaxy S4 review, go here.  For a look at the software innovations, check out our article here. And for the view of the person on the street, have a look at What Mobile’s Friend Test here.