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While the Samsung Galaxy S4 felt overall iterative, it was perhaps the design of the phone that seemed the most anchored in the past. Aside from not taking a drastic departure from the design of the Galaxy S3, the phone also sticks with similar materials. That is, the case is mostly comprised of glossy plastic. As with the GS3, the GS4’s build can distract from an otherwise high-quality presentation.
So when the screws were put to design chief Dennis Miloseski, instead of providing any sort of real justification for the build Samsung chose to go with, he pointed to software features that will differentiate the device from the competition. The smokescreen allowed Miloseski to shift the conversation from build quality to a design based on “building a meaningful relationship with technology.”
For the GS4, Samsung was focused on creating “a soul for the device” rather than focusing on what sort of materials to use when constructing the phone. Miloseski’s responses seem more like typical PR boilerplate rather than any genuine response to the initial concern over materials used in constructing the latest Samsung flagship.
Sure, we agree with him to an extent. The main goal should always be to create a unique and meaningful experience between user and phone. But we also feel it doesn’t hurt to focus on the actual design of the device. Just look at HTC. For their One series of phones they have often developed novel ways to deploy new materials to create phones that look awesome without sacrificing any sort of functionality. For Samsung, there is no excuse not to place a similar focus on hardware design.
[via AppleInsider]
I personally think the design is great as well as the material. It’s very durable and light doesn’t chip or dent. Fantastic plastic.
Nice try Dennis Miloseski, Samsung design chief. ;)
The design it pretty great yeh.
While I would prefer a metal base, the shape etc are great.
I don’t get what people like about the design of the HTC One. Sure it is metal, nice, but the rest in ugly imo.
Either way, neither of those will be mine. Fifth nexus for me.
I agree although I was hoping for the exynos 5 on the us version. just 4 months ago nobody cared about the material used, now that HTC released the one everyone is interested in aluminum.
Seriously Samsung shows it cannot lead, this abomination is pretty ugly, but I guess that marketing budget goes a long way, all the fanboys are out in hordes defending it.
Pretty ugly? Make up your nine. Is it pretty or is it ugly?
reading comprehension fail!
You’re right it is ugly. I’ll still see you walking around with one @ launch as will I.
lol, Last Samsung phone I had was the Gnexus, was plasticky and creaked but took the abuse ill give it that. Now Im on N4 and getting ready to sell that for a HTC one, Im tired of the shitty nexus cameras. Finally HTC made a phone that I am pleased to look at not a Samsung phone I have to put up with.
ugly is your opinion i actually like the design, its a more sleeker s3…marketing will only get you so far, look at msoft they are marketing the hell out wp8 and w8 but its not exactly booming. marketing needs to be backed up with a good device. marketing will get you to notice a device and maybe even purchase it but unless the device is good people wont keep it and would return it if they didnt like it especially if you are going to be with it for 2 years or shelled out £500+ on it.
Most android fans won’t buy android phones without SD or removable battery. If I wanted a phone with limitations I’d just get an iPhone.
Sadly most android fans spend a lot of time debating over the number of cores the next processor holds, and dont know jack squat about ARM architecture. Most spend time idolizing high PPI screens when they forget to look at things like color reproduction or viewing angles, most android fans spend time thinking about battery size or replaceable batteries instead of an efficient operating system. Most android fans spend time thinking about high pixel cameras, without knowing that basically all OEM are sourcing their sensors from Sony and Omnivision, and they also tend to forget the physical limitations of a small sensor trying to capture so many pixels, and worst of all most android fans spend their time idolizing a company that focuses more effort on a large list of specs and branding than directing efforts to make sure they work accordingly.
Yeah, she’s ugly but she has a good heart(LOL)!
Hard plastic vs a beautiful, quality, metal, NO-GAP, uni-body.. I wonder who wins for build quality.. ;)
Isn’t the HTC One white plastic with some aluminum glued to either side?
No, you have it backwards. it’s solid Aluminum with injected plastic “accents.”
Sarcasm? To me it looks like white plastic with aluminum speaker grills glued on the top and bottom of the front, and then glued to the back. Everything sandwiched between the aluminum looks plastic. What am I missing?
You are missing facts, and key details. Read up on it a bit more, you will be impressed!
your brain, and a basic elementary education would be a start.
Thin strips of plastic, to allow reception into the antennas.
lets hope it doesnt have reception issues when holding it in certain ways like the iphone 4
All phones do.
Sure they do but it’s all about where that weakness is, youddon’t want it to be like the 4 where the weakness is where you would hold it normally.
I want a gap so that I can OPEN up the phone!
still plastic lol
Cheap garbage
and like garbage it gets placed in a plastic container
Whatever. I buy phones to use them, not to look at them as designer pieces. My concern is with the new features and how well they work.
Certainly (as I think the article suggests), function should be paramount. That doesn’t mean that having something esthetically pleasing is or should be irrelevant to most people. Personally, I wish the HTC One had a couple of the features that are important to me (e.g. removable battery) or that the Samsung didn’t look like crap.
Build quality is very important.
build quality isnt just about what the phone is made of but how the parts are put together…you could get something that looks and feels great but is built poorly on the inside…i have had the s2 and s3 and have not had a single scratch or loosening of parts despite sites like phandroid calling them cheap plastic
Yeah, that’s the thing most don’t understand. Samsung may be using plastic but their devices are extremely durable and well put together. Cheap plastic, sure, but not weak or poorly build devices.
You obviously have little knowledge of the HTC One…
I don’t think I said anything bad about the HTC one.
I’d have to agree. My GS3 has held up just a well as any Moto phone I’ve had. The “build quality” is fine and plenty robust.
Personally, I don’t care about the outside appearance of the phone that much, as long as it is comfortable to hold in the hand.
Most early reviews show the camera, screen and sound and design all favor the HTC ONE, nevermind they use the same processor in the U.S.
so go buy an HTC one..
as soon as its available for t- mo, plus I live in one of their first roll out markets for LTE.
Yes, the glossy plastic is horrid. Could have made it rubber coated at least, like the Droid X
The coating on the Droid X was the best ever. It felt amazing in your hands and was very scratch resistant.
Yay! A constructive criticism without hostile trolling! LOL Usually there’s always someone around to counter-attack
My brother’s droid razr maxx hd can change SD but stuck with non removable battery. At least it is a pretty big one.
It still won’t be enough to appease the metalheads. There must be a better solution.
I don’t care what they look like I just want good features and a removable battery and sd card
Htc builds plastic phones. Dont hinge your hatred filled article of sammy based on a single phone from HTC that hasnt even shipped yet. Piss poor dude. Next youll blame Verizon for the plastic.
The HTC One is made of a metal unibody, these don’t compare.
HTC doesn’t make many glossy plastic phones though. Its the gloss that makes it feel cheap.
There’s really nothing wrong with the design. It’s just that the HTC One’s design is a lot better. That said, I’ll be buying the S4. I like the features even though some seem gimmicky. And Samsung is more likely to update the phone to the latest build of Android than it’s competitors.
P.S. I think they had to go with plastic because of the removable battery.
Besides… 90% of people slap cases on their phones so who cares about the material underneath
It’s called build quality. It matters. Trust me.
i don’t think it’s the same thing. Actually being poorly built isn’t the same as looking poorly built.
Not on a practical level. On a practical level, when your battery dies on your shiny phone, you’ll have to get a new phone.
Never used a case. Never cracked a screen. I care what the material feels like on the back.
Well, the new i-Droid fans are a lot like i-Sheep…
Why everything has to be with metal body and design… Samsung GS4 design has more advantage than the HTC One in any way.
Just tell me one advantage of the One over the S4?
It has Blink feed. boom!
“It has Blink feed. Blink!” is the correct one. You’re welcome. :P
We will always have this debate. Some people will prefer the removable battery. Others will prefer the unibody. You can’t have both so the 2 sides will never unite.
You could have a backplate that screwed on with a bunch of tiny torx screws, and it’d be a good compromise. A battery that could be replaced (though not quickly), and rigidity for those who want “premium metal”.
Front facing speakers (2)
What about headsets?
fanboy is fanboy is stupid fanboy.
Thing is be or not a fanboy… Android fans are became more and more interested in the design and material of the phone than what it really can do.
I remember when the only important feature that i-Sheeps can argue was the alluminum body design of the i Phone and Android user were proud of the improvement of the software. Now it look like if it is not Vanilla doesn’t matter who it performs, the most important now is how it look and feel… the same thing than i Phone…
I hope English isnt your first language. Ill reiterate once more, HTC One, better camera, better screen (higher PPI and higher pixel count) and better design.
No, it isn’t…
You are talking about the hardware, I am talking about the design and metal vs plastic body.
Better camera and screen? that subjective… for me the AMOLED screen is much better than LCD.
in all reality the the pentile Amoled screen Samsung uses has 33% less pixels than the HTC One, due to its larger size it also diminishes the PPI count, Amoled is infamous for burn in and over saturated colors. Those are 3 things in the screen alone that HTC does bettter than Samsung.
I really doubt you can see any difference in a 1080 5″ screen between RGB and PenTile… people have been using PenTile for a while in the S3 with a 720 screen and the regular and mandatory complain about it has almost stopped.
Burn and over satured colors are subjective again and in my opinion a 5″ 1080 screen with PenTile is the best and efficient way to save energy with 33% less photodiodes and non different perception.
So why make it 1080? why not regular RGB? oh thats right BS Samsung marketing. Burn in and over saturated colors are not subjective, those are facts of samsung’s amoled screens, if you fail to see them is because you are a fanboy. You’re just falling deep for that multi billion dollar samsung advertisement, and the bad thing is that you’re worst than Apple fanboys.
and you talk about hoping english isnt someone’s first language….as condescending as you’ve been, i really hope english isnt YOUR first language smh
Deal with it!
Yes, because everyone should wear headsets when they’re on the toilet, out and about, or at a friends house. Front facing speakers is the most radical design we’ve seen from smartphones in the longest time, one that I’m sure Apple and Samsung will adopt in the future.
Samsung already had that design in the Galaxy Player 4.2
It doesn’t feel cheap.
Feel and reality are different.
Plastic absorbs the energy from a drop better than rigid designs, so less chance of a cracked display if dropped. It also enables design options like a back that can be removed for sd slot and battery. Things the “more rigid” designs out ATM do not offer.
Plus you can easily make plastic look and feel very good. The Nexus One’s back is plastic, but has a solid “velvet” feel. I wish Samsung would do that. I don’t mind plastic, but the slippery glossy kind gotta go.
This is true. For the longest time, I thought the Galaxy Nexus was made of metal (aside from the battery cover). It wasn’t until a tear down that I was like, “Holy, sh*t. It’s plastic!” :O
While not everyone will agree, I think shiny “hyperglaze” plastic is the wrong route to take. Samsung’s design team should focus on faux metal going forward, then it will shut up everyone who complains about their designs (myself included). :p
I agree. The hyperglaze makes the phone look cheap, not the plastic.
For instance, my Galaxy Note 1 (International) has the same amount of glass as any phone (all the front). The sides and buttons are metal (Chrome) and only the back and interior is plastic, but with a great finish. It let you put a mSD or change batteries. I must had opened it like 50 times and still like the first day. I do not understand why all the hate against Samsung.
I am glad it is plastic. I wish they would use whatever lightest material as possible. This way after putting a case on it, it won’t be so heavy. I mean, who doesn’t use a case nowadays anyway?
LOTS of people, at least here in India. Must be a regular thing in the US I guess.
Me. Cases add bulk and with these displays getting up to the 5″ range I can’t spare any more space in my pocket. I treat the phone like I give a damn about the $700 I just spent so I don’t drop it.
The material is durable and light, though holding it in your hand doesn’t give you the feeling of getting your money’s worth. Personal opinion for people in North America the HTC One is the device to get, almost same specs and it has a nicer feel. Same CPU, internationally it’s a different story, if the big.LITTLE octa core has better battery life and is faster too, then the S4 would by choice. I’m not the best candidate to evaluate it anyways since I usually get unlocked Nexi phones.
Actually I think the funniest part is that the source of this article Is
Apple Insider.
Yeah, they might have well have interviewed Apple.
What a non-issue!
my co-worker’s sister makes $82/hour on the laptop. She has been fired from work for six months but last month her payment was $20683 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Read more on Ask25.com
Most people put their phones in a case anyway, those that don’t tend to have broken screens…fact
I’ve had 6 android phones so far… number of cases: 0. Number of cracked screens: 0. Your fact becomes opinion.
Its like marrying a ugly girl because she can cook. I would rather split the difference. I need balance in my life.
so when htc announced the one x and dna etc it was polycarbonate but when samsung do the same its cheap plastic ok lol…
but it didnt look like ass.
Htc didnt make those out of recycled shampoo bottles.
Lol ok my s3 is falling apart… I think it was in the news how 50million s3s just fell apart…
I’m not saying they will fall apart, but they do make better looking and feeling plastics now. Btw, I have a gs3.
Plastic isn’t the problem… Glossy plastic is the problem.
(see my above comment)
Of course, none of our hands have felt either one of these phones to decide which one feels better, which one feels more solid. But, we ALL know, right? C’mon, people, none of us have touched either one of these phones yet, but we’re all experts?
I just did an informal poll at work
Of my 5 colleagues that have iPhones, 4 of them have a plastic case on them.
1 of them doesn’t have a case on it at all and his 4S looks like a brooks brothers store window after an Occupy Wallstreet riot.
I don’t know about you but I actually use my phone rather than look at the casing of them all day..
How do you use your phone without looking at it?
lmao
Braille.
Bluetooth?
you know what I mean
Otterbox? Trident Case? Only thing I see on my phone is the screen and the bezel above & below the screen.
I keep my phone in a case when I’m out and about but as soon as I get home, I undress her and caress her soft touch skin. O_o
Ahem… We’ll leave you two in your bunk….
I do that to my Nexus 7. It looks so nice.
without sacrificing any functionality? wouldnt you say that lacking sd slot or removable battery is sacrificing functionality for some
Removable battery doesn’t sacrifice any functionality or has anything to do with the how the phone functions. The phone will still be able to perform like any other device. Also there are ways to add external memory to your phone. USB OTG. It’s not a very practical method as opposed to it being embedded into the phone, but you can still have external memory.
Sacrificing functionality would be the Nexus 4 not having LTE. They completely took that functionality away from the phone.
I think the word you may be looking for is “convenience”. It’s a convenience to some to have a removable battery and micro SD card support.
I for one prefer a phone to have a micro-sd card, but a removable battery isn’t necessary.
It’s not just convenience. If the phone crashes hard, sometimes the only way out would be to take out the battery and put it back in again. Obviously Samsung won’t want to mention the possibility of their phones crashing but I am comfortable with the fact that all phones aren’t perfect, things will happen and you need a Plan B option.
Really? My Nexus 7 had messed up. Just held the power button for 5 seconds. My E4GT completely froze on me plenty of times while running this leaked build. Held the power button for 5 seconds. I last time I took the battery out my phone was when I was doing something with Odin last year back during ICS. Yea. That was a LONG time ago.
There is no reason to take the battery out your phone for that purpose. Holding the power button for 5 seconds does the same thing a battery pull does. I’m sorry, but it’s just a placebo thinking that a battery pull will fix it.
I’m sure there are other reasons that a battery pull will fix, but for hard crashes, no. You don’t HAVE to do a battery pull.
Save yourself some time from taking off the case, taking off the cheap plastic that feels like it’s going to break, then putting back in the battery and the case. LoL!!
Currently battery technology provides about 500 charges until the battery reach 50% capacity. If you are a power user you can do 500 charges the first year. Its good to only expend $10 and have a new battery again that let you use your phone for more than 12 months as new… One good use of SD is when you are a rooter/modder. Its good to have the possibility to flash from SD any file when you screwed your phone and even USB port is not working (Happened to me once with my Note 1 and the SD save me).
This may be true, but I also thought a full charge was when the battery lost a full 100%. Example:
You start at 100%. Battery drops to 50%. You charge back to 100%. Battery drops back to 50%. You charge back to 100%. That is one full charge. When it looses 100% then gain 100%. It doesn’t matter if it’s in intervals. This is what I’ve believe a full charge was.
As for the SD card, yea I agree. It’s good to have that convenience. You kinda proved my point. =.P
Now, I’m not saying that I still don’t want all that. I still prefer the having removable storage, but I’d try the HTC One.
Unless you really have like over 20GB of music then the HTC One not having a removable storage is not a loss. I have a total of 48GB, 32GB ext, 16GB int. I have about 15GB of space left in all. So 64GB storage would be good for me. I don’t think people realize that 64GB is a lot of space. But now I think I went off topic. =.P
There’s a price for premium metal unibody construction. You can’t have a removable battery or SD. You can’t offer dual SIM for the markets that demand them.
Sadly no one wants to hear that. People are assuming that they can do it. Technically they can, but the device wouldn’t be thin. And apparently people want thin devices. I don’t know why people want paper thin phones, but apparently they do. OEMs seem to point out how thin the phone is in presentations. *sigh*
But other manufacturers have managed to do just that?
I really wish the “soda can VS soda bottle” debate would just go away.
My phone is plastic and it fits inside a protective case just as well as any metal (or glass) phone. My tablet is metal. It’s cold and slippery and I couldn’t grip it confidently until I put a protective skin on it (Skinomi).
This is probably why people are buying that ugly Fiat. They just want a car to work. That thing is hideous and completely off topic. But it’s the analogy that matters.
Samsung phone designs are pretty bland, but they appease to me because I like squares. I draw cubes randomly when I’m doodling on paper. So basic square designs appeal to my interest. This is why I think the iPhone is a very cool looking phone. It’s just a square. I prefer the more square as opposed to the rounded square. Or the GS2 design as opposed to the GS3 design.
Its not the shape, its the materials. They can get away with plastic… but glossy plastic? Bleh.
Keep my gs3 in a case and think the front looks great. Definitely more concerned with performance, weight, thinness, operating system and smoothness.
I understand design is great for a phone. But a major majority of us will place our new phones in some bulky colorful phone case never to see the light of day until we decide to clean it.
It needs an outer case either way, so why does it matter what it’s made of? I just wish they would come out with a Rugby style S3/S4 phone … high spec shock/waterproof phone. Then I wouldn’t need a case.
Why does it “need an outer case either way”? I have an N4 and choose not to use a case. Cases add bulk to an already huge phone that barely fits in the pocket.
Use a little imagination …you may have heard that phone don’t do so well when dropped? The first thing I, and most owners, do when they buy a new phone is buy a protective case.
Tired of seeing ‘build quality’ attacks on anything not made of metal and glass. It’s 2013, I make fun of designers using metal and glass. The true measure of build quality is in a design/fabrication /assembly process that plays to the materials’ strengths, and in this respect Samsung quality is unassailable. Plastic does not interfere with signal, weighs substantially less, is insanely more shock resilient and it costs less to work with, which in the big picture allows for more advanced features to be included at a similar price point. I’m not going to waste my money on metal and glass.
That said, the gs4 back really does look awful. But that’s got nothing to do with it being plastic, just bad taste.
most people buy cases for their phone anyway so it wont even be an issue. if you dont like the look, you can change it with a case. if you think its flimsy, the case will protect it. non-issue.
i dont have a case for my S3 yet but i might get one of those element cases for the kickstand and sound channel feature.
I second that. Looks are secondary to function. Samsung recent phones work well. I haven’t owned any HTC phone since the Thunderbolt that had one issue after the other. I hear the DNA has some of the same issues. So I don’t mind a bland looking phone with great features as long as it works as designed. There is nothing HTC could do to regain my business.
The difference with Samsung plastic phones is we still have removable batteries. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but so far no nice metal uni-body phone has a removable battery. I have to have a removable battery for back-country outings. I realize I’m in the minority, but many others want removable batteries for other reasons.
Long as it’s durable… Samsung will sell a lot of S4’s. They sold a lot of S3’s, so this is little more than opinion. Apple makes phones with high end materials. HTC does too, perhaps one of those would be more to your liking. I disagree. It would cost them a lot more to make phones on the scale that they build on. Why pay more to charge more when the buying public is happy with plastics? Besides Apple probably has a patent on high end materials.
Lol funny how everyone is praising the HTC ones aluminum body even though they are going to cover it up with a fugly otter box case. At least with the s4 if it scratches or cracks you can just buy another housing replacement even a aluminum one if you wished not to mention you can miss match different colors with it.
Why are people so obsessed with the plastic? Most people put a case on their phone anyways so why does it matter?
Polycarbonate is the material of choice with any device with radio signals, metal phones are notorious for interfering with many radio signals. The polycarbonate phone holds up much better and looks better longer. Polycarbonate phones take drops much better than any metal phone does. Example – Look at the iphone 5, after one week my sister’s iphone 5 was a complete mess, it was all scratched and knicked up and little dents all over it. Metal, ask Apple how happy they went with it, they had to replace 50-60 % of all the ones they sold due to damage right out of the box. The only people complaining about the polycarbonate are other manufacturers and fanboys who know very little about building a solid phone. My SGS3 looks brand new, just like the day I bought it. Polycarbonate is the material of choice for cell phones. Wake up people. Don’t buy all the garbage that is thrown at you. Try using wireless charging with a metal phone, can’t.
This concern would be a bigger deal if … we didn’t just cover up every inch in a case anyway.
What does build quality matter when most people throw their phone in a brick to prevent damages. I know people with phones that have good build quality that put them in cases and the case makes them bulky and ugly. This article was linked from Apple Insider so I am not surprised at the hateration. They also mentioned HTC! BTW, HTC and Apple have agreed on a settlement that limits the design and functionality of HTC phones. Yeah, go buy an HTC phone cuz we found a way to make them less competitive. HTC is trying to stay afloat.
plastic cases may seem less durable, but the irony is that because they’re lighter, they suffer much less damage when dropped than metal casings. proof: http://www.newtrent.com/
Plastic on my sg3 is so slick i had to get the otter box, now silicon, much better. Eh! Stay thirsty my friends!
Yeah I’ll come out and say it: HTC’s Sense SUCKS! It sucks bad enough for me to NEVER own one of their phones. Sure, I detest custom UIs like the next guy but if I had to live with one, it would probably be Touchwiz.
As for materials. This whole article reads like a butthurt Apple fanboy post on AppleInsider. Like others have pointed out, build quality on the Samsungs have been stellar. How they feel in the hand is a matter if personal preference, but has little or nothing to do with build quality.
Who cares what it’s made out of? 99% of the phones you see out and about are in a case anyway. The last phone I had that wasn’t in a case was my old Motorola v600.
Red herring!
I don’t mind plastic at all, but the s3 has a slippery back(white version ), so I use a case and now it’s not slippery anymore.. With a case, it’s not as prone to being dropped easily and even if I dropped it, it’d be safer as in th the screen won’t shutter into pieces and won’t get scratches..
I hope samsung remains making the galaxy series with a removable back even if they’re made out of plastic.. Say, they make a unibody aluminum galaxy s5.. Of course I wouldn’t want not to put a case on it because it would get scratches, especially after dropping it and it happens,.. so aluminum or glass is pointless.. Practicality
I also think the glossy finished looks good in white colo, it’s great, but I believe in black, Grey and blue the finishing is different.. Imo the finishing they used on these colors don’t reek of cheapness, they look classy and stylish .. The gnex to me looks kinda cheap im, so common and early 2000,s.. I like samoled the best, I don’t care about saturation, samoled pleases my eyes.. Lol
@kevin krause, you said ” For their One series of phones they have often developed novel ways to deploy new materials to create phones that look awesome without sacrificing any sort of functionality.” but that is OBVIOUSLY not true. It is because of the (beautiful) construction of the HTC that a removable battery/SD card has been omitted. As soon as you incorporate a back that opens, a new can of worms, er, opens.