Samsung Galaxy S4 in South Africa: what you need to know

Samsung is holding a big shindig in Sandton today (25 April 2013) to launch its new flagship Android smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S4, to the South African market.

Most of South Africa’s mobile network operators have been coy about releasing any pricing information leading up to the launch, unfortunately, with only Cell C officially announcing its contract packages.

However, Vodacom pre-order customers started posting the deals they had been offered by call centre agents online.

The following table presents a quick comparison of the contract deals on offer from Vodacom and Cell C:

Retailers such as Incredible Connection and Dion Wired also revealed their off-contract pricing for the Samsung Galaxy S4 as part of their pre-order promotions:

• Dion Wired: R8,450.00
• Incredible Connection: R8,499.95

Samsung announced that the device will be on sale from all operators and service providers on Saturday (27 April 2013) from 10:00, with Vodacom saying that it will initially only be available at Vodacom World and “participating outlets”.

Hardware and LTE support

Mobile operators have confirmed that they will be selling the i9500 model of the Samsung Galaxy S4 which comes with the Korean electronics giant’s Exynos Octa processor, which boasts 8 cores.

These cores are configured in a twin quad-core “Big.little” setup where the faster 1.6GHz Cortex-A15 “processor” does the heavy lifting, while the slower 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 is used for lighter tasks to conserve battery power.

Only the 32GB model of this device will be available in South Africa at launch, Samsung told MyBroadband.

Samsung South Africa confirmed that the Galaxy S4 with support for Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks would be coming to our shores as well, but only in six weeks from the launch of the HSPA version.

The LTE version uses a more conventional quad-core processor from Qualcomm, clocked at 1.9GHz, and Samsung said there will be a price difference of R300-R400 between the LTE and HSPA versions of the device.

The reviews are in

While reviews from South African media have not yet surfaced, international media have had the opportunity to put the Samsung Galaxy S4 through its paces.

Overall the impression seems to be that the Samsung Galaxy S4 is a good device, but really just an incremental improvement over the S3.

Despite using the less precise PenTile technology in their Super AMOLED displays, reviews suggest that the large (5-inch), incredibly high resolution screen (full 1080p HD) more than makes up for it.

Samsung has also included a 2,600mAh battery in the Galaxy S4 (larger than in its predecessor), though in practice it doesn’t seem to make a massive difference. The phone lasts about a day – as expected from modern smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy S4 press shots

The cameras perform well, though as one might expect from a smartphone camera, it doesn’t hold up in low-light. The Verge remarked that the Nokia Lumia 920 and the HTC One seemed to do better in low-light conditions.

A big criticism of the Samsung Galaxy S4 still remains – the design of its shell. Reviewers point out that it feels “plasticky”, lacks grip, and overall isn’t as nice to hold as other devices.

In spite of the exterior and occasional user interface shortcomings, reviewers agreed that the Samsung Galaxy S4 remains a fine phone that buyers are unlikely to be disappointed with.

More Android and Samsung Galaxy S4 news

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Galaxy S4 Vodacom, Dion Wired pre-order prices emerge

Samsung Galaxy S4 prices from Cell C

Samsung Galaxy S4 official launch date for SA

Samsung Galaxy S4 officially unveiled (includes summary of features)