yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Galaxy S 4 General] -]Megacharge[-:
Funny thing, BoneXDA posted those photos, and I was looking at them and thinking to myself, man, these look a bit off, and it was bothering me a bit, but I just thought, eh, probably just me, but then on page 24, BoneXDA even mentioned that they are not quite as good, apparently the processing is different, or it's due to different drivers or something, so I wasn't the only one noticing it, and there seems to be a reason for it. He made a comment about it on page 24.

There seems to be a bit more noise in the S600 variant's pictures, in sky regions, and zoomed in detail isn't quite as sharp.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
It's not placebo, but we are talking about the slightest differences, "2nd rate" is a stretch. It appears to me that the Exynos variant has maybe a 1% more clarity, especially in small background parts where you don't notice any blurriness and it is also bit less saturated. On average the file size is a few %s smaller. Then again, small differences and probably due to processing. Outstanding camera performance on both versions.
[Galaxy S 4 General] -]Megacharge[-:
"Second Rate" to me means not as good as the other. There should be no reason why the Exynos variant is taking better pictures than the S600 variant. Whatever it is needs to be adjusted or fixed so they are both outputting pictures equally. It looks to my eyes like more than "1%", regardless, if I'm buying a GS4 I WANT that "1%".
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
There's always room for improvement, so let's see what the release versions do. It's nothing 9 out of 10 ppl. will notice anyway, benchmark difference is bigger.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Epic photo camera test - PureView 808 and S4 beats them all

Mobile-Review made yet another extensive test, this time throwing all competitors in from the cameraphone leader PureView to HTC One to iPhone 5 to GS4 and others.

http://translate.google.com/transla.../mobile-review.com/review/phototest2013.shtml

Conclusion

In fact, all the smart phones of today are very well photographed, only quibble would be the real geeks or professionals in Art. However, the winner in a highly subjective survey will still have to determine.

I'll start with the device, which scored according to my data, the lowest result - it Meizu MX2. C on the other hand, MX2 - no photo oriented flagship model: it is interesting to see a (one of the best) and compact dimensions. Nomination made by Meizu, lack of a more precise white balance and sharpness. Also, do not forget that in this comparison MX2 stands still at the lower border of the price, so the quality of pictures, if you take that into account, it turns out good.

The second place is taken by the end of Sony Xperia Z. It seems that the software is clearly "nedopileno": not very clear pictures, there is a lot of red shades of color.

Next - Samsung Galaxy Note II. Good camera, but often lies BB, do not know how to choose the point of focus for the exhibition, a lot of noise when shooting in low light.

The next smartphone is very difficult to determine the podium. For example, Nokia Lumia 920 is best "fotkaet" at night as during the day photos with "Lumiya" so-so. HTC Butterfly - a good option for almost all conditions, but slightly behind other devices.

Camera HTC One seemed to me strange: in some circumstances come out very sharp photos in other smartphone loses even MX2. Best shots are obtained when shooting in poor conditions, as the device has an optical image stabilizer (you can reduce the exposure and the value of ISO). As part of the video - the best of all (perhaps on par with the Nokia Lumia 920).

Interestingly, the Apple iPhone 5 is probably the most versatile mobile camera: in almost all cases, I rate it if you do not "excellent", then to "very good." In addition, iPhone 5 has the easiest interface and the lens does not need to rub after each removing the smartphone from the holster or pocket.

A special case is Nokia PureView 808. If you close your eyes to the "dead" operating system Symbian, then Nokia 808 photographs almost perfectly. Approximately at the same level removes Samsung Galaxy S4: great job white balance, accurate selection of exposure, a very wide dynamic range (probably because of the files on the go with the SGS 5-9 MB), the highest detail, a soft noise suppression, a lot of settings, effects and filters.

Therefore Nokia PureView 808 and Samsung Galaxy S4 can rightly divide the first place!
[Galaxy S 4 General] NZtechfreak:
Thanks for that. Curious about the HDR shots at the end, since the Pureview doesn't have an HDR mode!
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
GSM Arena review update: retail unit

Boys at GSMA got their hands on a retail unit and are updating their in-depth review. Audio and smart scrolling improved, as well as the camera performance (my observation).

Update, April 18: We got a final retail Galaxy S4 unit and redid tests and benchmarks, made new screenshots and checked if the description of all the features is accurate. Here's what we found to have changed:

Added info and photos on the new eco-friendly box

The Smart scroll feature works better on the final unit

New benchmarks showing slightly improved performance

New audio quality test

New photo and video samples

The biggest improvement is in SunSpider, the update puts the S4 on top with an impressive 810ms mark
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Zoom Russia review

http://translate.google.com/transla...=http://zoom.cnews.ru/publication/item/43700/
[Galaxy S 4 General] Jercote:
good improvements

Those are some nice improvement on the retail version i9505 :)
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
AndroidAuthority just posted it's review, video too

http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-s4-review-194534/

[YOUTUBE]U8STgCviLe0[/YOUTUBE]

Wrap up and final thoughts

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is coming over the next weeks to all major US carriers, at prices ranging between $150 and $249 on contract, and is expected to be widely available across the world. It’s likely that, if you will be shopping for a new smartphone in the next 18 months, the Galaxy S4 will come up as an option. So, what’s the verdict?

From our time with the Samsung Galaxy S4, we can say that it’s one of the best smartphones of all time, which, while not revolutionary, brings more than enough new stuff to the table to be worth an upgrade. It’s almost better in every way than its predecessor, has top-notch specs, and beats competitors when it comes to software and hardware features.

Samsung worked hard to perfect its product design (hardware and software) and it succeeded in most part. The caveats are the plastic build and the somehow over-the-top TouchWiz user interface, but if you are okay with that, the Galaxy S4 is a smartphone that we can fully recommend.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
28.444 AnTuTu score on Snapdragon 600?

http://www.yugatech.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-s4-review/

Now that's interesting. AnTuTu's unreliable, or the I9505 improves by healthy margin upon release? The Snapdragon 600 variant tested by Yugatech scored an impressive (a little too impressive) 28.444 score The rest of the benchmarks are pretty much the same we've seen elsewhere, the 11,5hrs of continuous 1080p video playback on 50% brightness is in line too, and is mighty impressive. The site itself looks reliable, so it's probably an AnTuTu glitch. Or is it?

Conclusion.

It’s pretty obvious Samsung is putting more focus now on the software aside from the hardware. This is evident with the new TouchWiz UI, the loaded Camera App, the multitude of environmental sensors (barometer, temperature, humidity), and the polishing of the ecosystem and user-experience.

It would have been easy to conclude that the Galaxy S4 is merely a more polished and well-designed version of the Galaxy S3, and in some aspects, it holds true. However, we think Samsung has moved on to the next layer of perfecting their handsets while competitors are just starting to catch up on the hardware front.

Nevertheless, we think the Galaxy S4 has almost everything any customer would expect from a flagship device — an impressive set of hardware, a more refined design, a polished user-interface, a great camera plus all the bells and whistles that Samsung can think of (yes, we see a hint of Apple-envy here). With a suggested retail price of Php30,990, we believe Samsung will continue to sell a gazillion of these babies this year.

What we liked about it:

* Top-notch performance

* Very high display resolution

* Great camera performance and features

* High-speed LTE connectivity

* NFC functions and features

* IR Blaster

* Good battery life

What we did not like:

* More gimmicky features and bloatware
[Galaxy S 4 General] Jercote:
I hope this holds to be true. :) I have my gt-i9505 on pre-order. So far the adreno 320 is proving to be excellent and now with improving antutu scores, the lte version is looking even more awesome.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Extensive 3-week impressions review

[YOUTUBE]2YraSyZ15h8[/YOUTUBE]
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
The Verge review - 8.0

As expected, ever the Apple fanboy (see the constant 9.0+ iScores disregarding issues and political Samsung-bashing), they scored the S4 quite down due to design. Which is ridiculous at this point, considering the curved design is actually not far off the iPhone and the build quality is excellent with no glued issues say on the One they seem to love. But the agenda comes with no surprise and let's respect their opinion, here it is:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/24/4257254/samsung-galaxy-s4-review

Wrap-up

I ended my HTC One review by saying there were two Android phones worth buying, the One and the Nexus 4. That number is now very clearly three, but I had hoped against hope that Samsung would emerge the undisputed winner. The Galaxy S4 is a very good phone in most respects — it has a stellar camera and solid battery life, blistering performance and an impressively useful complement of software features. It's a technological achievement — there's no question about that.

But part of what has me so excited about the smartphone market is that manufacturers are finally starting to step back from the relentless forward march of Moore's Law and spec races, and seek quality in other places. We’ve seen it in laptops, as companies like Toshiba finally turn away from racing to the pricing bottom and begin to build truly excellent ultrabooks; we're also seeing it in cellphones, from the HTC One and a small selection of other devices.

I don't need more cores, more gigahertz, or more software features that ostensibly help me use my phone more easily. I need a phone that feels good in my hand, looks good on my desk, does everything I expect it to, and gives me no reason to think it won't last the life of my two-year contract. I bought an iPhone 5 because last fall it was the only phone that fit that bill — now there are several Android options as well, and they’re good enough to make me want to switch back to Google’s OS.

For now, it's a choice every buyer will have to make. You can have the far better-looking phone or you can have the slightly better-performing phone — and you really can't choose wrong. If the GS III is any indication, millions upon millions will choose the GS4. Me? I think design matters. Polish matters. The Galaxy S4 is fast and impressive, but it's also noisy and complex. The One is refined, quiet, comfortable, beautiful, and above all simply pleasant. I love using that phone, in a way I haven't experienced with anything since the iPhone 5. That's why, when my contract is up in June, I'll probably be casting my lot with HTC instead of Samsung.
[Galaxy S 4 General] MaKTaiL:
That's his loss I guess, going with HTC. He says power and software features don't matter. It only matters how the phone looks on the desk for other people to see. That's just ridiculous.
[Galaxy S 4 General] pack21:
fanboy, he always overestimate the design, and even not value gives the sam effort to provide us with unique features, they are on S4, so is to us use then or not..... I want functionality, innovation and repairability, want to see how it will repair things when ONE drops, screen, chassi or battery get damage, will see those owner reports soon.

Looks the face he is doing testing smart pause on theverge YouTube vid, fanboy!
[Galaxy S 4 General] Sarcron:
I've never met anyone outside of tech blogs who goes at length to say that design is very important so you can show off your phone. Everyone I know uses cases/skins, and/or generally keeps their device tucked away, or they leave it out so they can quickly get back to using it. Stock appearance is nice, but having protection, or your own personal style on your phone, seems more appealing to people.

I mean, we customize the hell out of our phone software with appearances and themes, so why would it be unexpected to do physical customization?
[Galaxy S 4 General] L7iharsha:
What ever it may be but still made with cheap plastic
[Galaxy S 4 General] mrvirginia:
Engadget review

edit theres a review thread
[Galaxy S 4 General] MaKTaiL:
Go back your own forum.
[Galaxy S 4 General] yahyoh:
Damn the verge they're iSheep to the bone
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
No, it's made out of the same polycarbonate that makes the Lumia 920 far more rugged than glass or metal rivals, plus it has Gorilla Glass 3 on the front.

It's still their opinion to make, and surely we want to know the issues. But the site constantly nitpicks these Sammy/droid issues while giving Apple a pass on the map-gate and scratchy painted metal, not to mention the "corrupt Samsung" articles, so they are hardly impartial.

Looks are one thing, practicality is another, and easily replaceable and repairable (and probably more shock-proof) polycarbonate is better suited for daily real life usage, and other reviews have no problems pointing this out. But hey, it's their opinion, predictable as it is. :good:
[Galaxy S 4 General] myphone12345:
Yeah, which most folks will end up covering with another layer of cheap plastic anyway, so who cares what's underneath the final layer of stuff surrounding the phone?

Seriously, how often do you see anyone use say an iPhone without a case or skin? Just look around... The answer is very seldom.
[Galaxy S 4 General] bala_gamer:
and here come the anandtech review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6914/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
A number of American reviews hit the web

It is release week in the US and the Galaxy S4 reviews are coming out in numbers. Compared to Asian and European colleagues, the Americans seem to be a little obsessed with the polycarbonate build that is pointed out as a negative despite not having real-life issues with it. On the positive side, they are well impressed by the size, screen, performance, battery and camera, rating usually comes to personal preference. These are the Snapdragon 600 units with LTE.

AnandTech

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6914/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review

The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/24/4257254/samsung-galaxy-s4-review

PocketNow!

http://pocketnow.com/2013/04/24/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review

TechHive

http://www.techhive.com/article/203...a-worthy-successor-but-not-revolutionary.html

Phandroid

http://phandroid.com/2013/04/24/samsung-galaxy-s4-review/

TechCrunch

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/23/samsung-galaxy-s4-review-the-s-stands-for-super-not-simple/
[Galaxy S 4 General] Toss3:
I was under the impression that polycarbonate was more expensive than aluminium?
[Galaxy S 4 General] CLARiiON:
IMO, the most defining statement from Anandtech's review:
[Galaxy S 4 General] krabman:
Gotta agree with the others here, I don't care what the phone looks like because it will be in a case as soon as it arrives and it wont come out until I sell it. This jives with pretty much everyone I know regardless of what phone they have, it goes in a case and thats the end of it. This is something that doesn't seem to be acknowledged in the various reviews and IMO they make way too much of the phones appeareance which outside of its gross dimensions has no real world meaning.
[Galaxy S 4 General] baileyjr:
Im surprised it said the HTC had the edge on battery life. I always love Anantech reviews but I just find that one hard to swallow.
[Galaxy S 4 General] Toss3:
It doesn't. Anandtech has a weird way of determining battery-life, and I'm sure both phones will be great once they get tweaked with custom kernels (not sure if that will be possible on the HTC One, as the bootloader seems to be locked in some models).
[Galaxy S 4 General] bala_gamer:
No do not come to conclusion, they have clearly mentioned that they are testing it in a career locked device, so the battery life may vary. Wait for a full review on a career free device

《posted from s3》
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
It's a tie based on 4 tests. Too bad they didn't measure standby time and video playback, where the S4 just breaks away and never looks back according to GSM Arena. To HTC One's credit, it does appear very strong in web browsing, the main area of AnandTech's battery focus, so credit where it's due.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Ready for boatloads more?

CNet

http://reviews.cnet.com/samsung-galaxy-s4/

Engadget

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/24/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review/

Gizmodo

http://gizmodo.com/5995291/samsung-galaxy-s4-review-better-not-best

AndroidCentral

http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s4-review

IntoMobile

http://www.intomobile.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-s4-review/

Slashgear

http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review-23278981/

AndroidGuys

http://www.androidguys.com/2013/04/24/samsung-galaxy-s4-review-video/

Übergizmo

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/04/samsung-galaxy-s4-review/

Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/samsung/10014920/Galaxy-S4-review-Samsungs-superphone.html

GottabeMobile

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2013/04/23/samsung-galaxy-s4-review/

AndroidCommunity

http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review-20130423/

GadgetBox

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/g...review-its-better-youll-ever-notice-6C9572228

LaptopMag

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s4.aspx

BGR

http://bgr.com/2013/04/24/samsung-galaxy-s4-review-448039/?utm_source=hitlist-sb&utm_medium=home
[Galaxy S 4 General] yahyoh:
HMM most of the reviewer said there is weird lag and stutter here and there :(

Damn even the gallery took 2-6 second to load :eek::eek:

IDK but HTC One seems faster and smoother :/
[Galaxy S 4 General] tuxonhtc:
Ahh, I wish Anand had reviewed instead of Brian. Not a big fan.
[Galaxy S 4 General] yahyoh:
yep

spacely the Battery tests are really really crappy :rolleyes:

( i always feel anandtech biased to apple ) huh!! IP4's can do more browsing time than Note 2 and more than GS4

edit : the charging times is wrong too

according to GSmarena GS4 took 1:51 to fully charge , my Note 2 fully charge from 0-100 in 2:10 and he putting it at 3:20 O_o
[Galaxy S 4 General] :
Delete
[Galaxy S 4 General] pack21:
Its important to know if they used S4 with gestures sensor on or off, to make a fair battery comparative they must be off....and im not sure they do that way.

If gesture sensor is on the comparative is wrong.
[Galaxy S 4 General] tuxonhtc:
Not sure about Anand being biased. But Brian's battery tests are incredibly annoying - and makes me really suspect of bias (probably unintentional) even if I try not to.

For eg, here in his review of One: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/htc-one-review/3 - the battery Hotspot list had no SIII, Note II and still has LG Revolution and everything for some bizarre reason, pushing One to the top.

Meanwhile no WiFi hotspot tests at all for Note II:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6386/samsung-galaxy-note-2-review-t-mobile-/4

And I wonder why there are no contrast ratio tests for S4, like HTC One had?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/htc-one-review/10

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6914/samsung-galaxy-s-4-review/8

I can't just fathom why it is so, I would have really liked some more in depth analysis like he did with HTC One.
[Galaxy S 4 General] pack21:
They forget one thing, after 27 April we will begin have here the real tests, the xda users opinions and those are what i believe :D
[Galaxy S 4 General] randombirt:
Locked bootloader?
[Galaxy S 4 General] CreepyDroid:
Maybe it's just the US versions ?
[Galaxy S 4 General] yahyoh:
normally only verizon version come with locked bootloader :rolleyes:
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Doubt they are messing with the numbers, as said before, they likely had sensors on, which is fair considering Samsung is selling the device with those features. In any case GSM Arena's battery rundown is the most well-rounded and battle-tested, and most agree that the S4 takes a major step forward. No miracles though. It's still daily charging with heavy usage, my pattern would pull 2, maybe 3 days.
[Galaxy S 4 General] yahyoh:
I dont think so

All gusters ( motions ) on GS3 & NOTE 2 come off out of the box :rolleyes:
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Yeah but the tech geek in the reviewer definitely turns them on for playing before doing boring battery tests.... Admit it, you'd turn it on too. :laugh:
[Galaxy S 4 General] Toss3:
This was just part 1 of the review. :)
[Galaxy S 4 General] Sobai:
On Anantech's review I found this part very interesting:

The Snapdragon 600 in the S4 could be capable of higher clock rates than the 600 in other phones, including HTC One.
[Galaxy S 4 General] randombirt:
And this is t mobile device?
[Galaxy S 4 General] Toss3:
Really surprised at the reviews, as none seem to be praising the S4. Most of here seem to be in denial that the S4 might not be as good as we have come to expect. I mean I get it if one review said it wasn't that good, but all of them? Not sure what to think. :confused:
[Galaxy S 4 General] tuxonhtc:
Seriously, I'm not accusing him of anything, especially fabricating data. Anandtech is a top website and really enjoy their reviews. But it is still annoying to me that he'd do that, that has nothing to do with battery performing worse than expected in Anandtech review. I pretty much expected that given SAMOLEDs web browsing performance being always weak. It's same on my Note II, browsing is bit of a downer as most sites use white BG.

That has nothing to do with the point I made earlier, don't get me wrong :)

---------- Post added at 05:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:45 PM ----------

Oh fair enough then. Scratch that. I'm looking forward to more extensive screen tests like they did with HTC One.

---------- Post added at 05:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:46 PM ----------

Probably design is bit of a turn off for most tbh. Lets face it, HTC One, regardless of whatever its durability and everything may be, is hard to beat in the looks department. And I guess most reviewers love that, and might impact their initial impressions on the S4, which is basically the same design. Speculating here, of course.
[Galaxy S 4 General] BoneXDA:
Anandtech does test browsing at a fix brightness of 200 nits (on all displays), but this is problematic for 2 reasons. One, SAMOLED screens have much lower reflectability and much higher contrast ratio, which means at 200 nits the Galaxy will be more legible than say an Xperia Z at 200 nits, plus Samsung uses adapt display with dimmer white against eye-strain and battery drainage, and setting screen manually to 200 nits is countering this ability. So in the end the Samsung uses more screen than it should relative to the actual real legibility of rival devices. Hence quicker drainage than what GSM Arena measured.
[Galaxy S 4 General] yahyoh:
there are many things here

1- some reviewers little biased ( the verge = iSheep , Michael Fisher from pocketnow simply hate Samsung .etc)

2- i think Samsung wasn't planning to release GS4 so early , and i think they weren't planning to use snap s600 outside the US but they had to use it because they can't manufacture enough Exynos Octa for all the World in very short time + they seems release it with Beta non optimized software which lag and stutter here and there :eek:

3- Big hype by Samsung . LOL :D

:rolleyes: