Galaxy S4 - Watch Thread....

OK fine I will compare it to car batteries. Wouldn't you think twice about buying a car if they buried the battery way down behind the engine and anytime you wanted to swap it out instead of just unscrewing 2 screws and pulling it out you had to pay a mechanic for several hours of labor to rip the whole front of the car out just to replace your battery? People don't pay mechanics to switch out batteries lol half the places here offer it as a free service if you buy the battery from them. Typical tire places also include the service of switching them out. Point is wear items are made easily accessible and people prefer it that way. But every once in a while some clown gets the idea to make it harder to try to drive in more money or force people to upgrade and it should be normal for logical human beings to not like that and have it sway buying decisions.

In fact the local stores around here will swap your user replaceable battery in a phone out for free to with no service charge if you buy the battery from them.

Samsung is a fine reliable brand, but phone batteries they wear out no matter who makes them and some wear out earlier than others, some people use their phones longer than others, etc... User replaceable battery = no problem what so ever with any situation and lower cost of owner ship over time.
 
Batteries in phones do wear out faster because of their natures. It's not like car batteries because your phone exclusively uses the battery and it's a reasonably usage pattern to drain your battery down to 25% every day.

Furthermore, lithium ion batteries suffer permanent capacity loss with time, losing around 40% capacity unless stored specially (70% charge at below room temperature).


Of course, it feels like everyone here changes phones every year but that's beside the point =P
 
rudy said:
OK fine I will compare it to car batteries. Wouldn't you think twice about buying a car if they buried the battery way down behind the engine and anytime you wanted to swap it out instead of just unscrewing 2 screws and pulling it out you had to pay a mechanic for several hours of labor to rip the whole front of the car out just to replace your battery? People don't pay mechanics to switch out batteries lol half the places here offer it as a free service if you buy the battery from them. Typical tire places also include the service of switching them out. Point is wear items are made easily accessible and people prefer it that way. But every once in a while some clown gets the idea to make it harder to try to drive in more money or force people to upgrade and it should be normal for logical human beings to not like that and have it sway buying decisions.

In fact the local stores around here will swap your user replaceable battery in a phone out for free to with no service charge if you buy the battery from them.

Samsung is a fine reliable brand, but phone batteries they wear out no matter who makes them and some wear out earlier than others, some people use their phones longer than others, etc... User replaceable battery = no problem what so ever with any situation and lower cost of owner ship over time.
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To prove your point further in regards to the car battery, there are BMW models that come in two types from the 90's and some in the early 2000's. Some place the battery in a very easy to replace spot, the others place it under the passenger seat. If you have the latter one you actually have pay a labor fee to have it replaced but if you had the easy to replace one its free of charge.
 
Cars are not discarded after 2 or 3 years like phones are. Cars needs a replaceable battery for that reason. Phones are only built to last 2 or 3 years. Most manufacturers EOL it after 2. Phone batteries typically are covered under the same 2 year warranty as with the phones. If you are also telling me that android or whatever Samsung put on their phones makes their battery dies faster than others, then I probably shouldn't be buying a Samsung phone. Do typical Samsung batteries not last their 2 year life-cycle?

A two-year old iPhone 5 will probably sell better than a one-year old Galaxy S4 when the time comes. To replace an iPhone battery after warranty, it'll cost you $35 for the battery with free labor; or the labor is $35 with free battery... The resale value of the iPhone will more than take care of itself compared to the GS4. If I'm worried about the battery and how much it would cost me to get it fixed in the long run, then the iPhone is certainly the best phone in the world.

P.S. Trimlock, I have one of those cars, a MB not BMW. The most annoying thing about it is when I need to jump start it. It's hard to park another car parallel to it sometimes. That's why I got myself an Energizer Jump Starter Kit. My passengers are leaving door open all the time... And the MB's battery has only been replaced once since 1999. The labor was included in the price of the battery.
 
Lots of people give their older phones to their kids if they last, with a replaceable battery they do last and its cheap to keep them going. Its less than $10 for the battery and I don't have to drive anywhere to get it I just order it. But you just don't seem to be understanding any of this.
 
Battery replacement for iPhone versus my Galaxy S2 through official means (IE, non-3rd party).

iPhone - http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html

Warranty covers the battery for 1 year, though ONLY if the battery is reduced to 50% or less capacity. My SGS2 battery after 18 months of some serious abuse is still at about 60-70%. So, getting below 50% in under 12 months is highly unlikely. Outside of the warranty, unless you have an AppleCare protection plan, it's $79. For the SGS2, the retail price of the OEM replacement battery is $24.99. You can do it yourself without any special tools.

Removable battery > sealed phone. There is no practical reason for a sealed phone. Now, if the phone meets your needs, great. If you have a personal preference for a sealed phone over a replaceable battery, I can respect that. But, anyone who says that NOT having the option of replacing the battery is better than having the option, and then criticizes anyone who disagrees, is clearly lacking in mental capacity.
 
CHANG3D said:
Batteries and tires? Seriously? Why not just compare a smartphone battery to a car battery? Most car battery should last you at least 5 years with a warranty of 3 years. If Kia sells you a new car with a battery that fails in a year or 2, you'd probably be pretty angry at Kia for selling you crap. If you're already expecting yourself to have to switch that brand new car battery out within 3 years yourself, you probably shouldn't have bought that battery or a car in the first place. But at least Toyota have a proven reliable track record on selling reliable parts. Even if your car has a failed battery from a brand new Toyota, you probably just think that you were just unlucky.

Most people also require auto-tech/mech to switch out the tires and/or batteries. To do it yourself, you require the proper tools too. Battery may be the easier to replace between the two. But I do doubt that most people have that wrench in the car at all times.

Like I said, you cannot worry about the battery failing. If you do, you'd should be something more reliable. And, unfortunately, that's Apple. Fortunately for me, I believe in Samsung despite being one of the unlucky ones before. Unless you think I'm totally naive about Samsung.

Samsung is a reliable brand now, is it not? All you guys worrying about the battery failing before it is supposed to is giving me second thoughts!
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Yes seriously. Its a wear item. What dont you understand. Car batteries last longer because they are a different type of battery. LOL Your really digging deep to try and make yourself out to be right but your not....
 
German Muscle said:
Yes seriously. Its a wear item. What dont you understand. Car batteries last longer because they are a different type of battery. LOL Your really digging deep to try and make yourself out to be right but your not....
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Everyone has different points, he just looks at it from a different angle then the rest of us. I don't agree with it but I'll respect it.

I still stand by non removable batteries are used for looks only.
 
Trimlock said:
Everyone has different points, he just looks at it from a different angle then the rest of us. I don't agree with it but I'll respect it.

I still stand by non removable batteries are used for looks only.
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hes not proving a point really. Hes trying to argue about peoples preference for things.
 
rudy said:
Lots of people give their older phones to their kids if they last, with a replaceable battery they do last and its cheap to keep them going. Its less than $10 for the battery and I don't have to drive anywhere to get it I just order it. But you just don't seem to be understanding any of this.
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lots of people give their kids iphones. Suggest you consider it if you are worried about money and battery life. Trust me. You can sell an used gsm iPhone 4 today for more than $300. An used gsm GS2 is $145. Check out this prices on ebay. I don't believe I can get $60 for my cdma GS2.

If it's money you are worried about, you cannot beat an iPhone. BTW, the iPhone 4 came about a year before the GS2 did.

Apple fanbois are probably laughing their ass off if you guys truly believe that your battery won't last its warranty. Sure, it happens. It happened to me before. It has happened to lots of iPhone users - but very few overall. Not having a removable battery being a deal breaker for android phones make us look stupid. So I'm simply saying that it cannot be a deal breaker. If I have that feature, I would certainly hope it be a feature I will never use until my phone is over two years old which by that time I will already have a new phone or is in the market to get one.

P.S. I wonder what kind of words medion is putting in my mouth this time. Probably some BS about how I'm saying that any phone with removable batteries sucks.
 
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This is silly. There is only one reason phones are sealed and thats to make more money off the end user when the battery craps out. There are so many people out there that are too dumb/not technically minded to realise that once they buy an item with proprietary hardware or fixed batteries then they are going to continuously throw money away.

Me when i've had my note 2 for a year ill buy a new housing dirt cheap and replace my current scratched one. Saving a butt load of money.
 
I wonder how much a butt load of money would be? Is it more/less that of a boat load?
 
To Chang3D, you talk about how cheap and easy and fast it is to replace an iPhone battery ? I am sure it is, because the iPhone is extremely popular, is sold everywhere, plus they have their own stores to service you, right away.

Try to get my Nexus 4 battery replaced ? Where would I take that ? Most likely only option is to mail it to LG, spend money on shipping costs, wait several weeks to get it done, and then mailed back to me. Same with the HTC One, where would I go to get that serviced in person, same day ? I doubt best Buy would replace a dead battery on the spot or same day like an Apple store would on an iPhone.

So really not good to compare changing an iPhone battery, compared to changing one on a Nexus 4 or HTC One X.
 
Point is your just not getting it changed, you trying to make decisions for other people, trying to reason with them a point, but you cant just see their point.

For instance the resale value of a phone isn't worth anything to me if the phone itself is not useful for the 2 years I am using it, and the phone has a higher total cost of ownership. Non removable batteries increase the total cost of owner ship and usefulness, because I am less inclined to replace the battery when I should. I personally would rather give the phone to my kids for the education experience. But I don't want to keep throwing more money into the phone for that. With a removable battery, I can easily do that, with expandable storage it doesn't bother me that the phone may have had less storage 4 years ago when it was bought.
 
rudy said:
OK fine I will compare it to car batteries. Wouldn't you think twice about buying a car if they buried the battery way down behind the engine and anytime you wanted to swap it out instead of just unscrewing 2 screws and pulling it out you had to pay a mechanic for several hours of labor to rip the whole front of the car out just to replace your battery? People don't pay mechanics to switch out batteries lol half the places here offer it as a free service if you buy the battery from them. Typical tire places also include the service of switching them out. Point is wear items are made easily accessible and people prefer it that way. But every once in a while some clown gets the idea to make it harder to try to drive in more money or force people to upgrade and it should be normal for logical human beings to not like that and have it sway buying decisions.

In fact the local stores around here will swap your user replaceable battery in a phone out for free to with no service charge if you buy the battery from them.

Samsung is a fine reliable brand, but phone batteries they wear out no matter who makes them and some wear out earlier than others, some people use their phones longer than others, etc... User replaceable battery = no problem what so ever with any situation and lower cost of owner ship over time.
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life expectancy of car battery is 4-5 years, and for the car itself, 10+ years.

i don't even keep my phone for more than a year, though 2 years is typical for most users. phones are nearly disposable these days.
 
blahblahyoutoo said:
life expectancy of car battery is 4-5 years, and for the car itself, 10+ years.

i don't even keep my phone for more than a year, though 2 years is typical for most users. phones are nearly disposable these days.
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Yep, phones 2 yrs old look very outdated and worn out after 24 months of use. My typical phone usage is around 12 months or so, always buy the latest Nexus phone each Fall. At $349, is not too hard on the wallet to get a brand new Nexus each year, and still be off contract :D
 
blahblahyoutoo said:
life expectancy of car battery is 4-5 years, and for the car itself, 10+ years.

i don't even keep my phone for more than a year, though 2 years is typical for most users. phones are nearly disposable these days.
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They are disposable because you let the companies make them disposable.... Trust me the auto companies tried to do the same thing. GM tried to move their car sales average up to, guess what, 2 years. And their average was 4. So that makes a car just like a phone. Guess what it gave them a bad name, but hey people fell for it then why shouldn't they fall for it in phones?
 
Zorachus said:
Yep, phones 2 yrs old look very outdated and worn out after 24 months of use. My typical phone usage is around 12 months or so, always buy the latest Nexus phone each Fall. At $349, is not too hard on the wallet to get a brand new Nexus each year, and still be off contract :D
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I disagree, my epic touch still looks fine to me and I have no real NEED to upgrade.

People mainly take the 2 year upgrade because their contract is 2 years and if you're staying with that carrier and are okay with the monthly payments then why not resign/use the upgrade.
 
Zorachus said:
To Chang3D, you talk about how cheap and easy and fast it is to replace an iPhone battery ? I am sure it is, because the iPhone is extremely popular, is sold everywhere, plus they have their own stores to service you, right away.

Try to get my Nexus 4 battery replaced ? Where would I take that ? Most likely only option is to mail it to LG, spend money on shipping costs, wait several weeks to get it done, and then mailed back to me. Same with the HTC One, where would I go to get that serviced in person, same day ? I doubt best Buy would replace a dead battery on the spot or same day like an Apple store would on an iPhone.

So really not good to compare changing an iPhone battery, compared to changing one on a Nexus 4 or HTC One X.
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No, I did not mention the HTC One or LG Nexus 4 because there is no need to. Because if a removable battery could be a deal breaker for you, then you're only choice of phone should be the Apple iPhone for all the reasons I listed above. Apple being a trusted brand on reliability with way higher resale value vs Samsung whom evidently you don't trust with battery under 2-year warranty.

P.S. I'm not making the choice for you. I just believe that a non-removable/embedded battery being a deal breaker is a stupid notion. It's a feature to have that I won't say no to. But to suggest that a phone, without a feature that should never be required, sucks is stupid. If you really think so, I have given you all the reasons to go to Apple, which seems to be your only choice because nobody else has Apple's record of reliability.
 
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CHANG3D said:
No, I did not mention the HTC One or LG Nexus 4 because there is no need to. Because if a removable battery could be a deal breaker for you, then you're only choice of phone should be the Apple iPhone for all the reasons I listed above. Apple being a trusted brand on reliability with way higher resale value vs Samsung whom evidently you don't trust with battery under 2-year warranty.
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What you are failing to see is everyone doesn't have full faith ANY battery. It has nothing to do with the product. Its like asking a person to rely 100% on their mechanical HDD's with no back up. If you had no option to replace busted HDD's you probably wouldn't use that computer would you?
 
ItaliaFerrari said:
The amount of advanced technology that Samsung Galaxy S4 possesses is amazing.

Never seen such a technologically advanced smartphone, ever.

Functions like air view, the ultra-sensitive touch screen, new Super AMOLED tech with higher brightness compared to previous Super AMOLED screens, motion sensors, and the fact it comes with Android 4.2.2 are all extremely attractive propositions from Samsung.
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LOL what???
 
rudy said:
They are disposable because you let the companies make them disposable.... Trust me the auto companies tried to do the same thing. GM tried to move their car sales average up to, guess what, 2 years. And their average was 4. So that makes a car just like a phone. Guess what it gave them a bad name, but hey people fell for it then why shouldn't they fall for it in phones?
Click to expand...

phones are disposable not because of durability/reliability reasons but because of wear and how quickly phone tech is evolving.
 
Trimlock said:
What you are failing to see is everyone doesn't have full faith ANY battery. It has nothing to do with the product. Its like asking a person to rely 100% on their mechanical HDD's with no back up. If you had no option to replace busted HDD's you probably wouldn't use that computer would you?
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Batteries do fail. The question is whether it will within 2 warranty of the phone. I don't believe the battery Samsung sells will die early. So why is it a absolute necessary feature to be removable? It's not.

For everyone who is buying the S4 because he does believe that it's absolutely necessary because you don't trust Samsung enough to sell you a battery that will last its warranty, it just makes the iPhone look good. Because people don't buy the iPhone any reason other than trust, or its just a great phone.

Let's just bear with me here. If all high-end phones have removable battery released this spring/summer, which phone would you buy? If all high-end phones have an embedded battery in the same time-frame, which would you buy? If the answer is Samsung either way, then you probably belong in the Church of Samsung and don't even know it. You're hyping up a feature that only Samsung has that makes zero impact on your decision.

blahblahyoutoo said:
phones are disposable not because of durability/reliability reasons but because of wear and how quickly phone tech is evolving.
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+1
 
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CHANG3D said:
No, I did not mention the HTC One or LG Nexus 4 because there is no need to. Because if a removable battery could be a deal breaker for you, then you're only choice of phone should be the Apple iPhone for all the reasons I listed above. Apple being a trusted brand on reliability with way higher resale value vs Samsung whom evidently you don't trust with battery under 2-year warranty.

P.S. I'm not making the choice for you. I just believe that a non-removable/embedded battery being a deal breaker is a stupid notion. It's a feature to have that I won't say no to. But to suggest that a phone, without a feature that should never be required, sucks is stupid. If you really think so, I have given you all the reasons to go to Apple, which seems to be your only choice because nobody else has Apple's record of reliability.
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everyone has a personal preference.
i started with BB's where battery pulls were the norm.
i then went to a gnex, not knowing anything about android and system stability so I thought I needed a removable battery for pulls. yet in my year of ownership, i never once replaced the battery, didn't care to get an extra battery, or the upgraded mah one.
once i realized how i could live day to day without worrying about battery life, i upgraded to the N4 without hesitation.

i know a lot of S3 users. none of them have extra batteries.
i think most people make a big deal about it, but none actually ever make use of that feature.
 
I work at BatteriesPlus and sell probably about 10-13 cellphone batteries daily to people who walk in.

From my experience over the past few years ive noticed 2 things. I stock and sell more HTC batteries than any other manufacturer. Second would be samsung then Moto.
The demand for replacement batteries is much higher with people who own HTC phones. Most people I converse with have an average life of about 12-18 months before the capacity creates a problem for daily use.
I've generated my own opinion that OEM HTC batteries degrade quicker than others. This is from observing what phones where coming in for replacement, both WP8 phones (HD7, Titan) and Android (Sensation4g, Mytouch's, Evo's).

4 days worth:

photoaz.jpg

(Alot of the samsung batteries in there are from old flip phones but I see about 8 "Galaxy" batteries compared to the other HTC's)

I really liked the HTC one but with my knowledge on how bad HTC batteries are compared to others aswell as how iFixit dissected this phone turned me off big time.

-HTC One Repairability Score: One out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)
-Very, very difficult (possibly impossible?) to open the device without damaging the rear case. This makes every component extremely difficult to replace.
-The battery is buried beneath the motherboard and adhered to the midframe, hindering its replacement.
-The display assembly cannot be replaced without removing the rear case—this will make the most common repair, a damaged screen, nearly impossible.
-Copper shielding on many components is difficult to remove and replace.
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Seeing HTC's battery life reputation and how impossible it is to replace. Ya I'll stick to the S4.
 
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blahblahyoutoo said:
phones are disposable not because of durability/reliability reasons but because of wear and how quickly phone tech is evolving.
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But older phones are still perfectly capable of doing lots of stuff, there is nothing that I use or need that my kids epic 4g cant do. Second for a kid to use over wifi what do I care? All I care about is not buying them a new phone or having high costs to replace batteries etc.... A removable battery on a phone is one of those things just like building your own desktop, it gives you lots of options no matter how fast the tech moves.
 
@Ron- do you know who makes the batteries for htc and moto? I don't think samsung makes them but they are for sure lower in quality then samsung made. My moto battery while reliable, wore out under 12 months.
 
Anyone see that the release has been moved up to the 23rd :) for At&t
 
I'm waiting for the Korean version of the Galaxy S4 to become available, which is the only Galaxy S4 model to have both an octal core and LTE...;)

SHV-E300S...still no sign anywhere...:(
 
Has the Octa-core GS4 been actually sighted/tested anywhere? I was starting to think that all of the S4s were going to be Qualcomm based since I saw even the UK/European version will not have the Exynos. At that point, I don't understand why Samsung would even have the two different variants of the phone when 90% of them will be Qualcomm based.

This time around, I don't think it matters as much since the S600 is much more competitive with the Exynos 5 than the S4 was with the Exynos 4 last year. The only thing the Exynos might have a considerable advantage over the S600 in is power efficiency with the lower powered quad A7 on-board. But I doubt it would make that big of a difference.
 
I haven't seen a battery test comparison between the two but the snapdragon 600 is supposed to be 40% more efficient than it's predecessor.

I've found that most people are confused about the octa. You don't really get 8 usable cores. It's a quad core. Same as the qualcomm 600. It just gets to choose which quad core to use based upon your usage. High performance or battery saving.

In the benchmark I saw the octa was slightly faster than the qualcomm. But this was not with final firmware.
 
Ron FTL said:
I work at BatteriesPlus and sell probably about 10-13 cellphone batteries daily to people who walk in.

From my experience over the past few years ive noticed 2 things. I stock and sell more HTC batteries than any other manufacturer. Second would be samsung then Moto.
The demand for replacement batteries is much higher with people who own HTC phones. Most people I converse with have an average life of about 12-18 months before the capacity creates a problem for daily use.
I've generated my own opinion that OEM HTC batteries degrade quicker than others. This is from observing what phones where coming in for replacement, both WP8 phones (HD7, Titan) and Android (Sensation4g, Mytouch's, Evo's).

I really liked the HTC one but with my knowledge on how bad HTC batteries are compared to others aswell as how iFixit dissected this phone turned me off big time.



Seeing HTC's battery life reputation and how impossible it is to replace. Ya I'll stick to the S4.
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Hah, I returned the only HTC I had..must have been 2 years ago, because of the battery life. Now I still have battery problems with an S3 so have a massive 3rd party battery and case to cover it. Doubled the size of the phone but I don't really care.
 
ilmmaf said:
Hah, I returned the only HTC I had..must have been 2 years ago, because of the battery life. Now I still have battery problems with an S3 so have a massive 3rd party battery and case to cover it. Doubled the size of the phone but I don't really care.
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While it is one of the best videos/advertisement I've ever seen on a launcher/custom ROM, if there is anything more of an iOS rip-off than TouchWiz, MIUI would be it. No thanks.

***Posted in wrong thread... damn it!*
 
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CHANG3D said:
While it is one of the best videos/advertisement I've ever seen on a launcher/custom ROM, if there is anything more of an iOS rip-off than TouchWiz, MIUI would be it. No thanks.
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Totally agree, never understood the MIUI ROM :rolleyes: Unless you want an iPhone with a 5" screen that only Android phones offer ? MIUI + Galaxy S4 = 5" iPhone.
 
blahblahyoutoo said:
LOL what???
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I don't know what you are laughing about.... He's right, no other smartphone to date has all the features that the GS4 has....
new this time around:
1080p 5" screen (really think about that)
touch screen that supports hover gestures (i.e. not even touching the display)
-thermometer
-802.11ac
-smart cover sensors
-eye tracking
-optional wireless charging
-flip cover that allows only a small portion of the screen to be on (get status updates without using the battery as much.)


There isn't much that this phone doesn't do.
 
Samsung smartphones score very high in repairability and reliability.

The Super AMOLED screen on the SGS4 keeps looking better and better.

Both GSM Arena and Android Authority say that the SGS4 has the best screen on the smartphone market.
 
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