[Galaxy S 4 General] BarryH_GEG:
Posts that support the point you wanted to make? ;) If you look across media-conducted reviews you'll see they aren't consistent with what you're pointing out. Some make your point while others don't.

Exactly. And benchmarks are nothing more than s/w emulators. They have nothing to do with actual game performance as different game developer’s code to different "denominators" and also have varying skills with some being exceptional when it comes to quality and others pretty shabby. Different games are going to perform both better and worse on PowerVR vs. Adreno and a lot of the issues will have nothing to do with either chip's top end performance. The SGS4's experiencing occasional app and UI lag but out-benchmarks the One. So benchmarks aren't reflective of real world behavior. So AndreiLux is spot on; but the lowest common denominator is the games themselves. EA's launch of SIM City ring a bell?

I agree with gavinfabl. In terms of refinement I'd say from posts on multiple issues it's at a "7" out of "10." But does anyone here think Samsung can't get the issues being talked about corrected? I'm not excusing them but none seem so major that they can't be corrected with updates. Speaking of which, to accomplish the below, they're going to be doing quite a bit of work under the hood. So at some point there will be a massive update that hopefully represents the quality the original shipping s/w should have had.

"We appreciate this issue being raised and we will improve our communications," a Samsung spokesperson told CNET UK. "Also, we are reviewing the possibility to secure more memory space through further software optimisation. "Samsung is committed to listening to our customers and responding to their needs as part of our innovation process."​

And I wouldn't laugh too fast HTC fans. No one but Google, Samsung, and Asus have been brave enough to ship 4.2 and it has been a cluster from day one. You can scoff at Samsung once the One's 4.2 update has been released and proven to be fault free.

As for the 16GB having 8.8GB available. I have 113 apps running on my N2 and I'm at 9.2GB of internal storage used. About half is CoPilot maps, DRM protected files that won't move, and games. I could get down to 8GB (leaving some breathing room) fairly easily. It would be nice not to have to but I wouldn't avoid the SGS4 in 16GB over it. I would buy a 32GB version if it were available just for the luxury of additional storage. According to Samsung, internal files use 1GB more of space on the SGS4 than the SGS3. That's not really a lot compared to the coverage the story has gotten. I do think all manufacturers should be required to list the amount of user available storage on any device they sell though. If everyone remembers, MS went through the exact same type of "expose" with the Surface.

HTC probably offers about 1/2 to 2/3 of the applications Samsung does. And the white-labeled remote app is from Peel. They should have just left it alone rather than trying to "Samsung-ize" it like they did before the SGS4. And for someone who previously said pulling stuff from Play was just as effective as using Samsung's included apps none of the apps you'd be pulling would be integrated either and all have different interfaces and navigation conventions. That would be a lot worse than what you're noting within Samsung's apps. Pick your battle. ;)

For the most part, Samsung's navigation conventions are pretty consistent across apps and the UI. And there are a hell of a lot more of them that Samsung has to integrate. I'm fine with Samsung's s/w and TouchWiz from a functional perspective. From an aesthetics perspective HTC wins hands down. But I'd take function over form any day. Here's an example. The Sense Exchange client is a cluster. It's not really designed to interact with Exchange Server at all. It's more of a send/receive "client." It's an example of where Samsung's probably about 100% more effective than HTC. The absence of the option in red below requires four steps to accomplish the same thing in Sense. I also play media across devices a lot and have used all HTC's DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, and MediaLink features. Samsung's probably about 60% better there. So "pretty" HTC wins by a mile. "Functional" will have me choose Samsung every time. But the less people do with their devices the less functional matters and the more pretty takes precedence.