Friday, July 19, 2013

My Mediocre S4 Review

Big news around the Werit household, I got myself a new phone!  My old phone was the original Motorola Droid which came out like 4 years ago or so.  It had served me well, but it was time to make a change.  I had a hard time even making calls near the end.  I have also recently started a new job, which means I'll be mobile much more often, so it seemed like a good occasion.

I'm generally a fan of Google and Android, so I wanted to stick with wheat I knew.  The Galaxy S4 seemed like the new big kid on the block, so I went with that.  A phone with 4 core processors, how crazy is that?  It's probably as fast as my last computer.  So I pulled the trigger and now am the owner of an S4.

The title mentions mediocre, but that has nothing to do with the phone itself.  It refers to the quality of this review.  I'm just not good at doing them, especially for phones.  I can only tell you how it performs for what I actually use it for.

Phone Calls.  Making calls is quick and responsive, unlike my last phone during its final days.  I can also receive calls, which is a big plus.  Understand what the person on the other end of the line is saying? Check.

Web Browsing.  It is a 4G phone, and I happen to be in the coverage area, yay!  Browsing is quick and works well. The only frustration I've had is betting Flash to work.  I had it going on the original Droid, but on this one? Not so much.  It isn't a deal breaker though, as I should not be watching videos at work or while I am driving.  Youtube works fine though.

Twitter.  It runs the Seesmic Twitter client.  Just like when browsing the web, it's nice and speedy.  No complaints from me.

Music Playing.  I use the Google Play music client to stream my songs from the cloud while I am at work.  Works great so far.  I really like the Instant Mix option so I don't spend my time setting up a playlist.

That's really all that I use my phone for.  I can't speak to how well the camera works (I use an actual camera ::GASP::) or how the phone bumping sharing works (NFC).  There is also this eye watching stuff that responds based on whether or not you are looking at it.  I have not really touched that either.  All of the other goodies have gone untouched as well.

I bought a Body Glove case for it as well.  It was simple, and more importantly, cheap. I couldn't believe how expensive some of the covers were.  $60 for a cover? No thanks.  For that price it better also be a video game.

Overall, it is a very speedy and easy to use phone.  It does everything I want it to do, so I am pretty happy with my purchase so far.