An Unboxing and Quick Look at the Samsung Galaxy S4

News
By Marcus Yam, Alex Davies
published

We take a peek at the GS4!

The follow-up to the most successful Android phone ever, the Galaxy SIII, has only been out for a couple of weeks now, and has already sold over 5 million units, according to Samsung. When it was announced in NYC on March 14, many people were a little disappointed that the Galaxy S4 was more of an iterative upgrade to the SIII. Still, it is an impressive piece of mobile hardware, and we were lucky enough to secure one of the Canadian Telus models in white as well as one from Rogers in Black.

 

The Galaxy S4 sports a gorgeous full HD 5-inch 1080p (441 ppi) Super AMOLED screen, and it is powered by the new quad-score Snapdragon 600 processor, running at an impressive 1.9 GHz. It also has a 13 MP camera, a removable 2,600 mAh battery, 16GB of storage (expandable with an open microSD slot), and runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. This last fact is pretty significant, since the S4 is currently the only device outside of the Nexus phones that officially runs Android 4.2, which brings some nice features like lock-screen widgets to the table.

The Galaxy S4 is available now in Canada for $200 on a 3-year term from every carrier under the sun (not been exclusive to any one carrier seems to be part of Samsung’s recipe for success), including Bell, Rogers, Telus and Virgin Mobile. In the United States the S4 is currently available from AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, and should be launching on Verizon next week. In the US the S4 starts at $200 on a 2-year term (though if you switch to Sprint you can get the S4 for a low as $150).

In the video below you can see us unbox the phone, and also do a quick comparison of the white model to the black Galaxy S4 and the HTC One.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Unboxing and First Look - YouTube
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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bobusboy
    Much more interesting than the black berry un-boxing you did a while back; but the Youtube video is private?
    Reply
  • sliem
    Video is private. Here's another:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTI_8ahqYJE
    Reply
  • Avus
    "not been exclusive to any one carrier seems to be part of Samsung’s recipe for success"
    Some stupid manufacturer like Nokia should take note. In Canada, Nokia's flagship 920 is only exclusively available from Rogers (aka Robbers).
    Reply
  • DarkSable
    We received one of these phones in white. *shows a picture of a black phone.*
    Reply
  • alex davies
    The video is fixed & is not private anymore. We did also get a black demo unit, but it wasn't used for the unboxing.
    Reply
  • Pinhedd
    I upgraded from an iPhone 4 to a Galaxy S4. So far I'm pretty happy with it. The screen is absolutely amazing, so if you do a lot of mobile browsing it's definitely something worth considering.
    Samsung did add a lot of gimmicks to the GS4, but Air View is actually really cool and works very well. Some of the others, such as eye and hand tracking, still need work.
    Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.
    Reply
  • d_kuhn
    I wish I'd waited for the S4... I 'upgraded' from the iPhone 4 to the Razr Maxx HD... and the Maxx HD is not a good device - on my second unit (first one rebooted hourly) and out of 3 firmware updates since January, 2 have wiped the phone so I needed to resetup, redelete all the crapware that comes bundled, and reload some app data. Very frustrated I didn't just get an iPhone 5, S3 or wait for the S4.
    Reply
  • icraft
    They changed the title! It used to be "a quick look at the blah blah blah"
    Reply
  • Grandmastersexsay
    You can't really compare the HTC One to the Galaxy S4 in the United States because you can't get the HTC One from Verizon. Even if the HTC One was a holographic phone, it wouldn't be worth it. Verizon's 3G and 4G speed and coverage area just destroys all other carriers combined in the US, including AT&T, which sucks because Verizon is evil. Thank Verizon and AT&T for their lobbying effort that resulted in it being illegal now to unlock your phone.
    As for Canada... Aren't you guys still using cans with string?
    Reply
  • alex davies
    Well, we did finally upgrade to telegraph up in the land of ice and snow...

    Thankfully in Canada our choices aren't as restricted as the US - both the HTC One and GS4 are available on all three major carriers (Bell, Rogers, Telus) & their sub-brands, and they all have great 4G coverage across the country in most urban areas.

    Also all the Canadian GS4's are bootloader unlocked, so you can easily install CM10.1, or the official 'stock' ROM from the Nexus GS4 when it comes out in June.
    Reply