Samsung Galaxy S4 Launching 26th April

I’m trying to figure out how I can justify a mobile phone upgrade to the Samsung Galaxy S4 which has an expected launch date of the 26th April and I’m struggling, not because it doesn’t look to be a great phone, just because my current handset is so good.

I already have the Samsung Galaxy S3, and it’s a great phone – trade in value is probably around £200 with an eBay value of £250 or more depending how good an auction runs. The Samsung S4 however has a price around the £580 mark if I get one SIM free.

The S4 is slightly smaller, slightly lighter has a slightly bigger screen, better processor and a bigger battery than the S3. There are some fun things with photos and lifestyle (weight, diet, exercise) apps that I’m really not interested in and some new ways to interact with the phone such as Smart Scroll, Smart Pause and Air Gesture (wave instead of touch the screen), but both phones have Samsung’s TouchWiz interface.

The cameras are beefed up on the S4, it comes with a 13Mp rear facing camera and a 2.1Mp front facing camera and can record video in Full HD 1080p rather than the 8Mp, 1.9Mp with 720p video that the Galaxy S3 has. However the S3 is one of the best cameras on the market and in visual side by side photos I’d say it beats the iPhone 5 camera hands down.

Storage on the S3 and S4 is the same, but RAM is doubled on the newer model to 2GB but then the S3 is no slouch when it comes to processing anyway so it’s tough to justify an upgrade on that alone. Really the biggest difference to the user will be the 5″ screen (4.8″ on the S3, Samsung cut down the bezels of the S4 to squeeze the slightly bigger screen in) and the resolution increase from 720×1280 (306ppi) up to a Full HD 1080×1920 (441ppi).

If you’ve got an older smartphone and want to upgrade then the Galaxy S4 is definitely worth a look at. However if you already have the Galaxy S3 it’s kinda hard to justify. If you know a good reason for me to upgrade I’m all ears (I really really want an S4, I just need to be convinced it’s worth the money). If on the other hand there’s an alternative high end smartphone that trumps the S4 tell me about that too!

Selling the Samsung Galaxy S4 on eBay

There are already and as normal around the high end mobile:

eBay Samsung Galaxy S4 Pre-Sales limits

Samsung authorised resellers may list up to 25 items per week.
eBay Top-rated sellers may list up to 4 items per week.
Sellers meeting our minimum performance standards may list 1 item per week.

eBay Samsung Galaxy S4 Pre-Sales limits

Samsung authorised resellers may list an unlimited number of items per week.
eBay Top-rated sellers may list up to 8 items per week.
Sellers meeting our minimum performance standards may list 4 items per week.
Sellers who’ve confirmed their personal information may list 1 item per week.

Sellers not meeting eBay’s minimum performance standards, or that haven’t confirmed their personal information, will not be allowed to list the latest Samsung products during the pre-sale or post-launch sale period.