Gadgetory

the biggest question we were trying to answer since day one with the Samsung Galaxy s4 zoom is whether we are using a phone with a zoom lens enabled camera or a camera with a phone attached needless to say people were shocked curious and intrigued to see us taking and placing calls on it the s4 zoom is the last Samsung device announced at the premier 2013 London event that we are reviewing now to check out our galaxy s4 active and Galaxy s4 mini reviews head over to pocket now and also subscribe to our social media channels to stay up to date the samsung galaxy s4 zoom provided to us by our good friends at Club that code at UK arrived at our doorstep on July 15 meaning we've used it exclusively as our daily driver over the course of 10 days just enough time to answer the phone camera dilemma however we instantly concluded that aside from the name the s4 zoom has nothing to do with the galaxy s4 it's a Galaxy camera galaxy s4 mini crossover on the outside it looks like a galaxy s4 mini if you look at the front if you turn it to the side or to the back it looks like a pointer shoot a galaxy camera the same design is being used or overused and the same materials graze your fingers hyper blaze polycarbonate put s4 like textures if we assume you've never seen another Samsung phone in the past two years we can describe it to you there's an earpiece up top above the samsung branding flanked by the sensors and the webcam below there's a 4.3 inch qHD screen and the bottom pulls the obligatory home button with the capacitive back and many shortcuts to its left and right that's about it as far as the phone part is concerned all the rest can easily be subject to a camera hardware tour there's even a tripod mount on the left side together with a microSD expansion slot and lanyard hole power button volume rockers and a two stage camera button on the right side microUSB port on the bottom with a flap to access the slide and battery and micro SIM tray there's also a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack I are blessed er and the secondary microphone on the top the back is dominated by the huge Samsung made zoom lens it offers 10 times optical zoom and it extends quite a bit the camera itself also has optical image stabilization focus assist light and the xenon flash near the lens on the back there's your speaker grille and yes there's a camera grip which is tipping the scales and this is a camera with a phone statements favored under the hyper glazed polycarbonate there's a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED screen with qHD resolution which is 960 by 540 a 1.5 gigahertz dual-core processor one and a half gigs of RAM 8 gigs of internal storage out of which five usable of course expandable a 16 megapixel main camera on the back with 10 times optical zoom and xenon flash 1.9 megapixel webcam 23 30 milliamp hour battery and Android 4.2.2 jelly bean with TouchWiz on top of it other specs include Wi-Fi Bluetooth NFC as well as 3G and LTE capable radios as far as software is concerned everything is similar to the Galaxy s4 mini which is similar to the galaxy s4 if you want to know about the details make sure to check out those reviews will now focus on the differences and new camera oriented editions the overall looks feel functionality and user experience is identical though probably the most talked-about feature of the s4 zoom is its camera ring while in camera mode you can use the ring to zoom in or out but while you're anywhere else twisting it brings up a special screen with some camera modes you can choose from use the ring to navigate the modes and jump straight into the camera app in order to shoot using that particular mode while in a phone call twist the ring to enter the in cool photo share feature which enables you to quickly snap a shot and send it to your contact the one you're on a call with there are specific photo and camera oriented applications bundled like photos suggests that places you on a map and shows you other pictures shot in your vicinity and story album which unfortunately crashed on our review unit upon launch but it should enable you to create slideshows and show off your skills probably the most important and different part of the software is the camera application you can launch it by holding down the shutter button but unfortunately only when the phone is unlocked no windows sound like what picture taking here launched the camera and the lens will extend on the back from there you have to make a choice shoot an auto mode smart mode or one of the three expert modes auto mode lets the camera the sight of how to shoot under those current conditions smart mode allows you to choose one of 25 existing shooting modes but advanced photographers will probably want to use one of the three expert modes program mode which adjusts the exposure by setting the shutter speed and aperture values manual mode for manually setting the previous values or color wizard for setting the color by manually changing brightness color saturation contrast and sharpness there are a ton of settings you can play with Samsung's latest TouchWiz user interface runs on top of Android 4.2.2 whether you like it or not it is however snappy even in the software department the s4 zoom looks and acts like an s4 give or take a couple of things like the missing LED notification air view and air gesture you won't find as health either and the keyboard just like um yes for mini is a four row input panel instead of the five row keyboard on the s4 the rest is the same we strongly encourage you to check out both the s4 and s4 mini reviews for more details we've used the samsung galaxy s4 zoom over the course of 10 days well this is no powerhouse it will manage to do everything you throw at it though occasionally you'll have to wait a second for heavy tasks to finish with our regular usage we got more than a day's worth of battery life out of the 2330 milliamp hour pack which is powering the phone or camera we're talking about phone calls text messages social media and Facebook Twitter Google+ taking pictures browsing the web instant messaging Google Maps YouTube videos Spotify music and even workout tracking you will definitely get at least one day's worth of action of the s4 zoom that is if you're not too heavy on the camera the zoom lens and the xenon flash really drain your battery if you're abusing the shutter button to say that the galaxy s4 zoom is the best camera we have ever used on a phone is an overstatement and it will definitely raise heated discussions and debate it is however right there in the top you can't go wrong with its pictures and with heavy advanced customizations and shooting modes you can also only share creativity thanks to the physical optical zoom lens Samsung didn't need to go with Nokia's or a similar approach in terms of huge megapixel sensors 16 megapixels is more than enough for the images generated and the lens zoomed in or not give you great quality clarity saturation and sharpness will leave you with some more samples playing in the background while we tell you that voice and data performance was also good we experienced no problems at all earpiece performance was good and so did our voice sound over the microphone speakerphone is loud thanks to the fairly large speaker on the back regardless if you are using it for calls or music we wish the Galaxy s4 zoom had a 720p display we wish it had a slightly faster processor but please double the internal storage and yes we wish it had an LED notification light it's time to draw our conclusion regardless of how much Samsung would like you to believe otherwise we think that the galaxy s4 zoom is a camera with a phone slap on it rather than a galaxy s4 with which it has absolutely nothing in common with a zoom lens attached as for the pros the gs4 zoom is definitely something you want to get if you are into a device that delivers everything phone and camera there are of course other solutions out there the bigger brother the galaxy s4 the main competitor the HTC One are also great camera solutions not to mention Windows Phone with its Lumia 1020 and the good old iPhone 5 if you decide to go with the GS 4 zoom you will not be disappointed because of all the aforementioned we are rating the galaxy s4 zoom and 8.2 out of 10 you