Galaxy S4 review Samsung’s superphone

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the best phone Samsung have ever made. But can it stand up to the iPhone 5 and the HTC One? Matt Warman says yes. 

Just nine months ago, Samsung released the Galaxy S3 – it was the first phone to really claim that it could rival Apple’s iPhone. With the S4, now Samsung hopes to say it has overtaken its rivals.

The Korean giant is certainly throwing everything at it: the S4 is so packed full of new features that some have said it forms an incoherent mass rather than a unified product. There’s a 13MP camera and a 5” screen packed into a smaller, lighter, thinner body than the S3, and there’s new eye-tracking technology that simply means you have to tilt your head to scroll on the screen. It’s not perfect but it works. Hovering your finger above a photo or email lets you preview more of it, which works rather more consistently. And there are health features that track how far you’ve walked, a built-in remote control and a deal to print out your photographs. Just in case you feel the need, you can now even take pictures with both the front and the rear cameras at the same time.

So does the S4 feel like the ultimate superphone or like a flabby mess? Is Samsung trying to do everything and succeeding at nothing?

The short answer is no. The S4 is a superb device that does more than any previous mobile phone, but doesn’t force any of its features upon its users. It is rivalled only by the HTC One.