Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review - Part 1
by Brian Klug on April 24, 2013 12:01 AM ESTNAND Performance
The Galaxy S 4 ships with either 16GB or 32GB of NAND on-board, but allows for expansion via a microSD card slot. The latter is a quickly disappearing feature on modern smartphones, but it remains a point of differentiation offered by Samsung. We were sampled a 16GB version of the Galaxy S 4, which arrived with 9.62GB of usable space after the OS and app pre-load.
As always we're using Androbench (with modified settings) to quantify NAND performance. Thankfully NAND performance has been steadily improving on modern smartphones/tablets, and the Galaxy S 4 is no exception. Sequential read performance actually sees a tremendous boost compared to most of the other devices in our charts here. Optimizing for sequential read performance makes a lot of sense, but it's good to see Samsung being competitive on all fronts here.
It is worth pointing out that NAND is treated very much as a commodity in these devices, and it's entirely possible that you'll see performance deviate from what we've shown here depending on what controller/NAND/firmware combination you get in your device.
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tarun.chatwith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
HTC One without a doubt.Enough of plastic
FITCamaro - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
You're just going to wrap it in a plastic/rubber case anyway most likely. So to me it's not much of an issue. I just got a new phone at work and went with the Note 2. Loving it so far. A tad large but I have big hands anyway and can text with holding it in one hand so I'm good.UpSpin - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Don't generalize. I never used a plastic/rubber case or a screen protector, only used a sleeve/bag to protect and clean the display while in the my pocket. You might enjoy plastic, others enjoy aluminum. Both materials have their advantages and disadvantage, in the end it's a personal decision. However aluminum looks and feels more expensive and looks of higher quality, and considering the price you pay for such a smartphone, it's understandable that people want that the device looks the way it costs.danbob999 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
It's a phone. Why would you care how expensive it looks?DigitalFreak - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
VanityThud2 - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
The vanity of trying not to appear vain.darwinosx - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Because when you pay money for something you want it to look and feel good. Obviously.Notmyusualid - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
+1danbob999 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Even if it means being larger, heavier, with a smaller display, a smaller battery, and no more resistant?UpSpin - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
But this isn't the case here. It has a larger bezel because of dual front speakers which are obviously better than mono back speakers. As long as it's comfortably weighted, heavier doesn't mean worse. (see complaints about too light iPhone). The display is smaller, but the size is a personal decision. The battery life is identical or even better, not worse. The shiny plastic gets easier dirty, is softer and easier to scratch than the anodized aluminum, it's also easier to break thin parts of the frame and thus buttons than to break a unibody case. But alumium is easier to dent.