Thoughts on the Galaxy S4 

I finally got a chance to take a look at the Galaxy S4 today, and was pretty impressed. There are, though, some aspects that are still clunky. 

First, the phone runs Android 4.2, and comes complete with expandable notification toggles as well as lock screen widgets. This is a reason to buy the S4 in itself. Not only are the new features a great addition to the phone, but it’s the only flagship device to be shipping with the latest version of Android - the HTC One is shipping with 4.1. Sure, most will not care about the version number of Android considering devices like these run a custom user interface, however the S4 releasing with the latest version of Android means you won’t be waiting for any updates like One owners. 

The S4 has a five-inch, 1080p resolution display and it’s rather beautiful.  It’s vibrant, crystal clear, and easy to read. However, the S3’s display is also just as good, and I only really noticed a difference when it came to the overall size of the display - those with larger fingers will welcome this bump in screen real estate. 

One thing I still don’t like is the notification toggles and settings menu - frankly, they’re hideous. The extendable notification button brings up a huge list of ugly, and very confusing toggles. It’s useful, but the implementation could have been much sleeker; you can tell Samsung didn’t spend much time on this area. 

It’s a very nice phone with a lot of great features, but seeing as most of the new software features will almost certainly be added to the Galaxy S3 in the near future via a firmware update, is it really worth upgrading? Of course we’re not seeing any huge changes between the S3 and 4, but as incremental upgrades go this is one of the better executions. It has a larger display, smarter overall appearance, and an improved camera, along with a slightly faster processor and larger battery. I wouldn’t recommend spending £400+ on one of these SIM-free just to upgrade your S3, but if you can get one for free on a contract upgrade, or get one for cheap, it’s a worthy successor and my favourite non-stock Android phone. 

Inspiration: Douglas Sonders

Douglas Sonders is a commercial photographer, well known-for his advertising shoots. I first came across Douglas’s work having watched him make a guest appearance on Digitalrev’s YouTube channel. His style is truly awesome, and a great inspiration for the amateur photographer. 

You can view all of Douglas’s work here.