Though Samsung promised that its octa-core processor would appear in phones this year, the U.S. version of the Galaxy S 4 features a 1.9 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. Having one quad-core processor is not a letdown because the Snapdragon is ridiculously fast, efficient, and powerful.
The 2GB of RAM and excellent 3D rendering never led to moments that I thought that the phone was sluggish. Gaming capabilities are also strong. The Unreal Engine-powered Horn and racing game Riptide both play with great speed.
Samsung sells the Galaxy S 4 in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB variants. Samsung's software eats up 6GB of the ROM, so only about 9.7 GB of space is actually available in the base 16GB version we're testing today. This limitation proved troublesome once I downloaded a few games and quickly ran out of space when adding a portion of my music collection. Storage can be increased with a 64GB-capable microSD slot.
The Android 4.2-powered Galaxy S 4 has more features than users will ever care to learn or use. The sensor-based software seems counterintuitive at first, but parts of it actually end up having practical value. Air Gesture is a way to navigate by not actually touching the screen; swipe above a sensor and the phone will know to go to the next image in the Gallery. It's much easier and faster to swipe by touching the screen, so nothing's really gained in that instance. That doesn't mean Air Gesture is useless; it's actually quite useful when swiping over an incoming call notification and automatically going into Speaker mode. Air View also has its limited practicality, but it comes in handy when previewing emails or navigating in media apps.
