Samsung Galaxy S4 Active

[Gorgenapper]

Think this phone deserves its own thread. The short answer is that this is the S4 but a few important differences.

* Water/dust resistant (IP67-certified)

* TFT LCD panel

* Heavier (21 grams exactly)

* 3 physical navigation buttons

* 8 MP camera instead of S4's 13 MP

Rumored release date of June 21 on AT&T. Personally I really like everything about the S4 except for the OLED panel. I would have preferred the light weight of the S4 however you also gain water resistance which is nice for myself, a frequent beach visitor in the summer. I also like the idea of supporting OEM's that are making water resistant smartphones.

I'll be demoing when it arrives at AT&T.

Wait...what? LCD? I am now very intrigued. I also dislike OLED for the inaccurate colors and low brightness. Say what you will, but after physically comparing the S4's screen (max brightness, Movie Mode) to a HTC One/iPhone 4S/5, I just could not get behind the S4's poor color accuracy for yellow images. It's fine for everything else...just not yellow/gold.

 

[blairharrington]

I read that the Galaxy S4 Active has a 1080p TFT display very similar to the Apple iPhone 5.

If that's true, it's not really a disadvantage to AMOLED.

I sometimes prefer AMOLED and sometimes prefer TFT.

I was able to compare the TFT LCD panel on the Galaxy Note 8.0 to my iPhone 5 last week.

In my quick comparison it was very close. My iPhone had better viewing angles but that's a non-issue for me personally. I always look at my phone head-on.

I was impressed with the TFT LCD on the Note 8.0 and I imagine the Active screen to be equally impressive. I'll be judging for myself when it hits AT&T on Tuesday.

 

[lothar]

Guess I'm the only one who considers the lack of oled a negative.

I consider that to be a negative as well.

 

[Dunkman04]

The oled is great if you never go outside. Unfortunately I do.

 

[lothar]

The oled is great if you never go outside. Unfortunately I do.

I didn't have any problems seeing a Galaxy Nexus or any other OLED screen really in sunlight.

 

[luv2liv]

every phone should be waterproof by now. i can understand iphones are not. because apple would love to sell you a new phone should you accidentally jump in the pool with one.

 

[Gorgenapper]

I would question the judgement of anybody jumping in a pool completely by accident.

 

[Skurge]

Samsung will repair an SGS4 with water damage at least twice for you under warranty. I wonder if that cover extends to this phone too.

 

[WelshBloke]

Samsung will repair an SGS4 with water damage at least twice for you under warranty...

Really? That's quite generous of them.

 

[Skurge]

Sorry, looks like it in Africa only for the moment. http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-pr...ge-warranty-for-galaxy-s4-in-certain-markets/

 

[santz]

is there any update on when this phone will release, I want one for my father and he isn't ready to wait and would rather get the regular s4 today. But i know the active will be more suitable to his day to day use.

seems there is little to no news out after scouring google with a magnifying glass

 

[blairharrington]

is there any update on when this phone will release, I want one for my father and he isn't ready to wait and would rather get the regular s4 today. But i know the active will be more suitable to his day to day use.

seems there is little to no news out after scouring google with a magnifying glass

June 21st in-store.

 

[s44]

June 21st in-store.

For AT&T. Haven't seen any news on other carriers.

 

[gorcorps]

I read that the Galaxy S4 Active has a 1080p TFT display very similar to the Apple iPhone 5.

If that's true, it's not really a disadvantage to AMOLED.

I sometimes prefer AMOLED and sometimes prefer TFT.

If its at that quality then it might not be too bad. I'll have to look at one in store.

 

[gorcorps]

June 21st in-store.

Today's the day. I'm going to try to find a store to try it out this weekend.

 

[santz]

Today's the day. I'm going to try to find a store to try it out this weekend.

please let us know your thoughts, plus does anyone know how the 8 MP camera is different than the S3 -8 MP camera?

 

[lvrzhn]

I got the phone yesterday. Will be torn between it and the Google Edition version of the regular S4 that will come out this week. I really don't appreciate the TouchWiz skin. The display is great as long as you turn off auto-brightness (it dims it to ridiculously low levels at times).

The physical buttons are fine however the arrangement seems counterintuitive for me, and I miss a dedicated button showing me all open apps so I can jump around between them.

It would be good to find out whether the camera sensor indeed has the same pixelsize as that on the 13 Mpix version, as Anandtech suggested. I'm not too impressed with the image quality so far but haven't played around with it enough yet to say for sure.

 

[blairharrington]

I picked the Active up on Friday. I want to spend a week with it before providing a review. My initial impressions are very positive. I'm running Nova Launcher Prime which I recommend.

 

[Germanic]

Just had a look at this today and I must say that I was impressed with the build quality. The S4 Active feels very sturdy.

 

[Gorgenapper]

Quick question for those who already have it...how's do yellow pics look like on it? Is there any greenish tint to them, or is it a comparable image to the HTC One and/or iPhone 5? That's one of the things which turned me off of the Galaxy S4.. (edit: When I say yellow pics, I mean images from www.nationalgeographic.com/125 look for the Sputnik Spotter button).

 

[Germanic]

Quick question for those who already have it...how's do yellow pics look like on it? Is there any greenish tint to them, or is it a comparable image to the HTC One and/or iPhone 5? That's one of the things which turned me off of the Galaxy S4.. (edit: When I say yellow pics, I mean images from www.nationalgeographic.com/125 look for the Sputnik Spotter button).

I would say closer to the HTC One/iPhone 5 because it is an LCD display (1080p and 441ppi at that) which produces more accurate colors.

But to be sure, check it out in person.

But I'm 99% sure it will be the same as in the HTC One/iPhone 5.

 

[Gorgenapper]

Wish I could check it out in person, but there are none in Canada.

 

[gorcorps]

I checked it out today while I was near the store. The screen was a good quality screen, so despite not looking as rich as I'm used to on the GS3 it looked very nice. I find I like the software buttons on my GS3 more than the hardware buttons on the active, but I could get used to that. None of the special samsung features seemed to work right. The motion controls, the finger-hover thing, the eye detection, etc. None of it worked right at all in the store.

Honestly the biggest reason I'm looking at it is because I just got a house with a pool and just know I'd do something stupid with a regular phone (forget it in my pocket, think it left it far enough away but it gets splashed, etc). I just had a live chat with ATT and they were very helpful in getting my upgrade pushed up and getting me a deal which ended in an Active for $100.

 

[santz]

The physical buttons are fine however the arrangement seems counterintuitive for me, and I miss a dedicated button showing me all open apps so I can jump around between them.

Please explain what you mean by this , do the physical buttons on the s4 active do something that is different than the soft touch buttons on the regular s4.

Also I find it frustrating that there are no benchmarks yet to showcase the tests of battery life and camera quality

The phones been out for some time now,

 

[lvrzhn]

I doubt it will be a big deal. I'm just used to having the back button on the left, and a "Mission Control (displaying all active apps)" type button on the right from my previous phone. On this phone the back button is on the right, and there's a menu button on the left and no "active apps" button.

Please explain what you mean by this , do the physical buttons on the s4 active do something that is different than the soft touch buttons on the regular s4.

Oh and I couldn't agree more with your signature!