Smartphones are now a very important part of our life, they have turned from a device to a life companion in the progressing years. Today I am going to share with you a journey that we all are aware of and has played a key role in making the Android Operating System the king of Smartphone platform. All the hype started when the Korean giant Samsung introduced the very first member of the Galaxy S line the Galaxy S (GT-I9000) to compete with Apple’s iPhone 4 which set the bar too high, since then it has been a climb up hill.
Samsung Galaxy S (2010)
The Galaxy S simply made Samsung what it is today in the smartphone market, I remember buying one back when it had launched and within hours I was in love with it. The huge 4 Inch AMOLED display with vibrant colors was just amazing, there was nothing like it back in 2010. The smartphone was running on Android version 2.2 named Froyo which was very advanced and feature loaded coming from a Nokia Symbian line of Smartphones (Nokia E63 to be exact). The touch was spotless and responsive and it was at times regarded as the “iPhone killer”, from the camera to the huge 16GB storage everything was just great and when Android 2.3 Gingerbread made its way to this Smartphone it become more pleasant than it ever was. The only downside that the Galaxy S had was a missing flash for the 5MP camera and it did matter a lot for a smartphone competing with the iPhone 4. The other sad part that I know many of the Galaxy S users experienced was when Samsung announced that it won’t be updated to Android 4.0 ICS, I moved the next big thing soon after that “The Samsung Galaxy S II”
Samsung Galaxy S II (2011)
Samsung launched the successor to the Galaxy S at the MWC 2011 and it received a demand much higher to what the Galaxy S ever had, it was surely worth it. The Galaxy S II took everything up by one compared to the Galaxy S, Looks very cutting edge, the processor was a Dual-core Exynos, RAM was a Full Gig this time and the camera was bumped to a 8MP. The screen resolution did not change with the 0.3 Inch increase in the screen size, but the AMOLED panel was now replaced by a SUPER AMOLED and trust me when I say “it was really super”. The Galaxy S II was blazing fast and the touch capabilities were “iPhone standard” for sure this time, Camera was one of the best 8MP of the time and Android updates were coming at a steady speed. There were also a handful of variants that came with names like Galaxy S II Skyrocket for North American carriers. In my opinion the Android 4.0.4 was the best version on the Galaxy S II, it was just perfect and was the only time I personally felt that Android can be stable at all times. As all good things must come to an end, came 2012 and Samsung launched the Galaxy S III, as you must have guessed by now I had to buy it.
Samsung Galaxy S III (2012)
The very first thing I noticed about the Galaxy S III was its design, I personally wasn’t a fan of it though. It was shaped like an soap bar and coming from the professional look the Galaxy S II had it just didn’t feel right but the specifications it came with did manage to make me look past the design after all. As one must expect Samsung updated the specifications of the Galaxy S III and it had a huge 4.8 HD SUPER AMOLED display that was the first of its kind, a Quad-core Exynos was handling the processing this time but the RAM was still 1GB (Most annoying part of GT-I9300). There were other variants in the North American region that were powered by a Dual-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor but they had an extra gig of Ram to make up for that. Camera was still a 8MP unit and as some might argue that it was better than the Galaxy S II, I will say that wasn’t the case, the only reason people thought this was because most of them were viewing the images from a same camera in an HD Screen than actually comparing them after printing or on a LCD monitor. The Galaxy S III had many smart tricks up its sleeves and since then Samsung has been know to add distinctive features in their Touchwiz UI. The Android updates were steady though it has been a Havoc after the Android 4.1.2 Jellybean update, Android 4.2 was skipped by Samsung but the Android 4.3 update hasn’t been a success yet, not it terms of stability to be specific. The Galaxy S III is till date considered to be the most successful Android device in terms of sales and usability.
Samsung Galaxy S4 (2013)
By the time the Galaxy S4 was launched in 2013, smartphones had already become one of the most used gadgets around the world, there were even reports that suggested that Smartphones had surpassed Laptop sales. The Galaxy S4 again had two variants, one with the Exynos Octa-Core processor and the North American sibling extracting power from a Snapdragon 600 from Qualcomm, though RAM amount remained constant at 2GB this time. Many customers in the North American and European region complained about not getting the Quad-core Galaxy S4 as it wasn’t having LTE capabilities, this was one of the reasons that the Galaxy S4 missed the mark according to Samsung themselves, the other being the nearly identical design to the Galaxy S III which isn’t something to be very proud of in the first place. Apart from the few disabilities that I just mentioned the Galaxy S4 was a future packed smartphones and did manage to sell in huge numbers. The S4 was polished with gesture and humidity sensors, being a necessity for the new Touchwhiz UI. Other than these there was a 13MP very capable camera unit along with the Full HD SUPER AMOLED screen measuring 5 Inches.
I am sure many of you out there have owned a Galaxy S smartphone and know how it feels, I may have missed quite a few things about each Galaxy S member so please feel free express your views in the comments section below.
