Samsung Galaxy S4 vs. Apple Iphone 5S

Samsung became the world's number one smartphone company after the release of its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. Galaxy S series offers smartphones with high-end specs in a reasonable screen size for daily use while the Galaxy Note series offers outstanding features in a relatively larger screen size which doesn't feels nice (in my opinion). Let us take the example of Galaxy Note 3. It's the best phablet available in the market today. But its screen size, 5.7", is a little too big for normal use. So, that's why I'll skip the Note series. And as for Galaxy S series, Samsung Galaxy S4 is the best Android smartphone of
2013 (in terms of technical specs and features available). On the other hand, Apple Iphone 5S is a smartphone that fulfills all the needs of a user in common use. And best of all is its size. Its size is just perfect for use and is easily operated by single hand. Lets get this talk over with and start comparing the smartphones.

Design:

Galaxy S4 follows the shape of its predecessor S3. But it’s slimmer and lighter than the S3. The major drawback of Galaxy S4 design over other smartphones is its plastic body. Although its shape and design is quite good, but the plastic body just doesn't seem to give the feel of an outstanding smartphone (even being an outstanding smartphone). Iphone 5S too, follows the shape of its predecessor. There’s a circle made with a different color than that of smartphone to highlight the fingerprint sensor on the home button. Other than that there isn’t any difference in design of Iphone 5 and 5S.

Display:

Both the smartphones consists of great displays. Galaxy S4 comes with a 5” Super AMOLED Full HD (1080 x 1920) display with a pixel density of 441ppi. Samsung continues to use Super AMOLED just like the previous S series smartphones but with greatly improved pixel density and screen resolution, making S4’s display to be one of the best displays of smartphones available in the market. Iphone 5S’s display is also the same of its predecessor just like the design. It comes with 4” LED Backlit IPS LCD (640 x 1136) with a pixel density of 326ppi. Iphone 5S’s display is a bit disappointing as it is an expensive smartphone. Now, anyone can see that S4’s display wins against 5S’s display with a noticeable margin.

Connectivity:

Both the smartphones support 2G, 3G and 4G connectivity. S4 that supports 4G is market dependent. It means not every model supports 4G. It depends on the market that you are buying from. It is possible that the available S4 support 4G but it could be possible too that the available S4 doesn’t support 4G. So be sure to check first if you want to buy. 5S uses nano-sim which is the smallest sim card till now. While S4 uses micro-sim which is a bit larger than nano-sim but smaller than a regular sim. The difference between micro and nano sim isn’t something that I need tell you as their names speak everything. But still it’s for those who didn’t know about it. Let’s get on with our comparison. S4 includes Wi-Fi 802.11, Wi-Fi hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0. 5S includes Wi-Fi 802.11, Wi-Fi hotspot and Bluetooth 4.0. Let me remind you of the fact that 5S Bluetooth is only for connecting to a Bluetooth headset not for file sharing. For file-sharing you have to use Airdrop file sharing service of 5S that allows file sharing between either Iphone 5 or 5S.

Hardware:

Both the smartphones operate on a different chipset. S4 is an Octa-core smartphone that runs on Samsung’s Exynos 5 chipset. I’ve seen a lot of S4 owners boasting about their smartphone to be an Octa-core. Yes, it is an Octa-core but not a true Octa-core. True Octa-core means that it can process all the 8 cores at the same time. But S4 doesn’t. It can process only 4 cores at a time, thus making it a Quad-core. To know about the difference between ordinary Octa-core and true Octa-core, Click Here. I like to say these types of smartphones “Dual Quad-core”. This is something made by myself. There’s nothing officially called “Dual Quad-core”. It has 2 Quad-core chips one of which is 1.6GHz (Cortex A15) and the other one is 1.2GHz (Cortex A7) backed up with 2GB of RAM. 5S runs on Apple’s ARM v8-based Cyclone Dual-core processor with 1.3GHz speed. And it must be remembered that Apple is the first one to launch a 64 bit processor with 5S. 5S processor is paired with 1GB DDR3 RAM. Let’s just skip all this complicated stuff shall we? Well then, when we talk about speed, Iphone 5S is the fastest smartphone in the history of smartphones. So, the simplest answer to the question “Which smartphone is faster?” is Iphone 5S.

Operating System:

Just like my previous comparison between HTC One and Iphone 5S, I already told that there isn’t any comparison of Android and IOS. Both are great in their own places. And both have some advantages over each other. So I’m going to skip this part. Here is a screenshot of both the smartphones UI. Features of the UI can’t be judged by just looking at it. But taking a glance at it won’t hurt.

Samsung Galaxy S4 UI

Apple Iphone 5S UI

Memory:

Memory is the one of the biggest advantage of S4. It comes in three different storage versions i.e. 16/32/64GB with a card slot up to 64GB. Now if you buy 64GB S4, then you can expand its memory to a total of 128GB with a 64GB SD card. This is the maximum storage in any smartphone till now (except for meizu MX3 which comes with an internal memory of 128GB). Only Samsung smartphones have the capability to reach a total storage of 128GB (excluding meizu MX3). No other smartphone company have launched a device who’s storage can be increased this much. 5S, on the other hand, comes in 3 different versions just like S4 but with no card slot to expand memory.

Camera:

Rear Camera:

S4 and 5S comprise of 13MP (4128 x 3096) and 8MP (3264 x 2448) rear camera respectively. “Dual-shot” is the most unique mode that S4’s camera offers. It allows the user to take picture from both the rear and front camera on a single image. This mode is unique because of its presence in S4 and Note 3 only. S4 also detects smile and takes image when it “senses” a smile in “Smile Detection” mode. 5S’s camera advantage over S4’s camera is “HDR Panorama” and 1.5µm pixel size. S4 also supports “Panorama” but not in “HDR” mode. And the second advantage is greater pixel size. Greater pixel size results in better low light images. Some common features of both the smartphones are: Simultaneous HD video and image recording, autofocus, touch focus, geo-tagging, face detection and HDR photo. Coming to the video recording of both cameras. S4 can record 1080p videos @30fps. 5S can record 1080p videos @30fps too but can record 720p videos at even better frame rate that is @120fps. 5S records both type of videos with video stabilization while S4 does not.

Front camera:

Front camera doesn’t need to be great as its sole purpose is video calling. But still, you don’t want to make yourself to be looked in a number of big pixels do you? Of course not. That's why S4 uses a 2MP front camera for video calling. And 5S uses a 1.2MP front camera for video calling with Face-time over Wi-Fi.

Here are some camera samples of both the smartphones:

(Camera samples do not belong to me. They have been taken from cnet.com)

Indoor:

Outdoor:

Again, S4 proves itself to be better than 5S.

Additional Features:

Can I just skip the additional features of S4? ‘Cause if I start mentioning all the features than this topic will be getting very lengthy. S4 is packed with awesome features and not only few but great in number. Its greatest features include Wireless Charging (market dependent), S-voice natural language commands and dictation, Smart stay, Smart Pause, Smart Scroll (S4 is quite smart. Isn’t it?) Air Gestures, Image/Video Editor, Document Viewer (can view all kinds of documents like Text Document, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF etc.), TV-out, Voice commands and Predictive text input (Swype).  S4 features aren’t limited to these. I’ve just highlighted the major features. There are some other small features (not much important) like 50GB cloud storage for Dropbox, Active noise cancellation with dedicated microphone, MP3/MP4 player (for all kinds of  audio and video) etc. Just like I told you, this topic got a little lengthy even that I just wrote names of major features without any description or anything. Let’s come to the features of 5S (won’t take much long). 5S’s features include Siri natural language commands and dictation, Airdrop files haring service (described in the “connectivity” topic), Predictive voice input, TV-out, iCloud cloud service, iCLoud Keychain, Audio/Video player and editor, Document viewer (like the one in S4), Voice commands and Maps. It’s not much but that’s all for 5S. Smartphone that takes the lead in this topic is; the one that you’re thinking of right now (as long as you’re thinking of S4).

Galaxy S4 Dual Shot

Battery:

S4 runs on a Removable Li-Ion 2600mAh battery with a stand-by time of 370 hours (3G). 5S runs on a Non-Removable Li-Po battery of 1560mAh capacity with stand-by time of 250 hours (3G). S4 provides great battery timings and easily gives 1¹/₂ or 2 days without charging on normal usage. While Iphone 5S because of low battery capacity, needs to be charged daily on normal use. Battery timings provided here are average and can be different for you as it depends on your usage and temperature.

Price:

Finally, the first and most important thing that people see about smartphones before anything else is its price. Because there’s no use viewing features of a smartphone out of your reach. S4 being packed with the best features is priced at $640 (16GB), $700 (32GB) and $800 (64GB). And 5S not being able to do much good against S4 is a bit more expensive and costs $650 (16GB), $749 (32GB) and $849(64GB).

Conclusion:

I don’t think that drawing conclusion after this discussion is difficult. For all those people who want most features in least price will definitely go for Samsung Galaxy S4. And for those who are apple lovers and prefer IOS over Android will surely go for Apple Iphone 5S. As for me, I’m one of those people who want most features in least price, so my decision isn’t hard for you to figure out.

Your feedback is very precious. So please tell me about your choice. Is it Galaxy S4 or Iphone 5S?