KNOW YOUR GALAXY: S4 VS S4 ACTIVE, S4 ZOOM, AND S4 MINI

SAMSUNG GALAXY S4

You may have heard of the Samsung Galaxy S4. Maybe a friend who has one, or you’ve seen a commercial or two about Samsung’s flagship phone. If you’ve been thinking about getting one you may find yourself asking a really odd question: “Which Galaxy S4 do I want?” As it turns out, there’s more than one, and each of them offers something very different.
The Galaxy S4 that everyone has heard of — the one from the commercials — is the original Galaxy S4. Since its New York announcement event, Samsung has been hard at work making other phones under the Galaxy S4 brand. Now we know about the water-resistant Galaxy S4 Active, the budget-minded Galaxy S4 Mini, and the ultimate Android camera-phone found in the Galaxy S4 Zoom.

Before you head to a store, take a look and see what each GS4 has to offer.

Processor

Your smartphone needs to be powerful enough to handle your needs. If those needs include playing top of the line games, streaming video to your television, and acting as your GPS while playing music, you’ll want something with a little more power. If you’re just interested in your email, Facebook, and the occasional game when bored, you may find yourself only needed the basics.

• Galaxy S4 – 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600
• Galaxy S4 Active – 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600
• Galaxy S4 Zoom – 1.5GHz dual-core Exynos 4212
• Galaxy S4 Mini – 1.7GHz dual-core

Display

Whether you’re a fan of the largest screen you can get your hands around, or just something that works well in direct sunlight, Samsung screens are some of the best on the market today. The important thing is picking the one that best fits your needs, so you can either get the display with the best possible resolution or just a display that works well.

• Galaxy S4 – 5-inch 1080p SAMOLED (441ppi)
• Galaxy S4 Active – Waterproof and dustproof 5-inch 1080p TFT (441ppi)
• Galaxy S4 Zoom - 4.3-inch 960 x 540 SAMOLED (256ppi)
• Galaxy S4 Mini - 4.3-inch 960 x 540 SAMOLED (256ppi)

Camera

For some people, the smartphone has completely replaced the point and shoot camera. This is often justification for paying for the higher end phones, and Samsung has been working hard to provide not only great cameras but great camera software. There’s also plenty of people out there who only take the occasional photo, so the absolute best camera isn’t a feature that compels them to choose one phone over the other.

• Galaxy S4 – 13MP rear camera, 2MP front camera
• Galaxy S4 Active – 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera
• Galaxy S4 Zoom – 16MP rear camera, 10x Optical zoom, 1.9MP front camera
• Galaxy S4 Mini – 8MP rear camera, 1.9MP front camera

Which Galaxy S4 would you choose?

The great thing about these phones is how much they have in common. All Galaxy S4 phones have removable storage and user replaceable batteries, as well as the latest version of Android made by Samsung. All Galaxy S4 phones also support LTE, which is a big deal in most major smartphone markets today.

Samsung has done an amazing job making sure that there’s a Galaxy S4 out there for everyone, and that the experiences across these devices are as similar as possible.