The new Samsung Galaxy S4 is this year’s replacement for the company’s hugely popular Galaxy S III, introduced a year ago. The S III has been a huge success because it took the lead in bringing Google’s Android OS to a phone with a beautiful large display in a thin, lightweight package. If there was one criticism about the S III, it was the cheap feeling of its plastic enclosure. It’s the tradeoff Samsung makes for cost and thin shape.

Physically, the S4 looks much like the S III. The enclosure is still plastic and looks even cheaper with gaudy, dark chrome plating and a black pattern of dots. (If I owned the phone I’d buy Samsung’s clever case, a book-like folding cover attached to a replacement back cover.) It’s now even more slippery to hold. And like its predecessor, it might feel a little large for a person with small hands.

The Galaxy S4 is intended to be an improvement to the S III; it does offer a few advantages, but creates usability problems with new software additions. The display is slightly bigger by 0.2 inches, the phone is 3/4 millimeter thinner, and the camera is slightly improved.

The major changes are new software features that, for the most part, seem unfinished and scattered. It’s as if the designers came up with all the gimmicks they could think of and then built them into the phone, with little thought to ease of use, value and performance. While it adds to the checklist of features, it makes the phone seem unpolished, especially compared to the HTC One, the Nokia 920 and the Apple iPhone 5.

The Galaxy S4′s display is slightly bigger by 0.2 inches, the phone is 3/4 millimeter thinner, and the camera is slightly improved. Photo courtesy of Samsung
In addition, Samsung added many of its own apps to take advantage of these features, but that added even more confusion, because it duplicated many of the standard Android apps. I found it to be a hodgepodge.

Some of the new software features are interesting in concept, such as the ability to use eye movements to scroll or to pause video. I also liked hovering my finger over the screen to open a selection list. But they worked inconsistently on only some apps, and, even when they did work better, seemed more of a gimmick than something of real value.

Samsung offers an escape from all of this with an Easy Mode that provides a simpler interface with larger icons and fewer menu options. But for me, this dumbed down the phone too much. I’d rather just turn off all of the software functions.

The S4 has a gorgeous 5-inch Amoled (1920 x 1080) display that looks beautiful, albeit with Amoled’s characteristic exaggerated colors. Outside in the bright sunlight, it was more difficult to read than the LCD displays found on most other phones.

The phone has a super-sized user replaceable 2750mAh battery, which is twice that of the iPhone’s battery, but the extra battery life is needed to get the phone through a full day of use. With this type of display, consumption is more for white than black pixels, so you’ll find many of the built-in menus displaying white text on a black background to save battery power.

Samsung provides an excellent camera that takes a picture using both the front and rear cameras at the same time, and inserts your image in the photo. Camera performance was excellent. With its 13-megapixel sensor and excellent color balance, it produced detailed and vibrant images.

Call clarity and reception on this AT&T phone was very good and is one of Samsung’s strengths. But its single speaker for listening to music is disappointing. Compared with the excellent sound from the HTC One with its Beats technology, the Samsung sound was poorer at playing music, suffering from distortion even at low volumes. It worked a little better as a speakerphone.

In summary, the S4 is a good phone that will likely sell in huge volumes; it has a fast response, a great display and speedy performance. The one disappointment is the piling-on all of the extras, which takes away from the otherwise positive experience. I much prefer the HTC One phone, which is much more attractive, solid and fun, rather than frustrating to use.

For those with a Samsung Galaxy SIII, my advice is to save your money and don’t upgrade to the S4. For those looking for a new phone, this is a good choice, but not the best. It’s available from all of the major carriers for about $200.

With nearly a million apps in Apple‘s iTunes store, it’s nearly impossible for an app company to get noticed. I’ve found that a better way is to check with friends and see what they like. Word of mouth seems to be the most effective marketing approach.

So, here are a few apps I’ve recently been trying and like very much. How did I find them? Mostly referrals from other users.

BizXpenseTrkr

While I’ve tried a number of apps that track business expenses and manage track time, this app has become my go-to product for managing both. It’s simple to use, comprehensive and flexible. For example, it lets you set different rates for different clients and use different currencies, whose conversion values are automatically updated over the Internet.

You enter your clients’ or customers’ names one time to track both time and expenses. It prompts you to take a snapshot of your receipt and integrates it with the expense description. You can export your records, including the photos, onto your desktop or send a report by email.

The app allows you to establish custom categories, such as personal and business, and assign your expenses to either. One of its latest features is tracking mileage, which using your GPS to monitor locations and distance.

The product, along with other tracking apps, comes from Silver Software, one of the pioneers in creating products for mobile devices, going back to the Apple Newton. It’s a product that shows a deep understanding of how such a product is used in real-life situations. ($5.99 from the App store; Apple only)

ScanBizCards

Remember those stand-alone card scanners that cost about $150? Now all of that functionality is in your phone thanks to ScanBizCards. It’s a $2 app that turns your iPhone into a powerful business card scanner.

I learned about this app from a San Diego lawyer who I sat next to on a recent flight from San Francisco. I watched him take a stack of business cards and photograph them one by one into his iPhone. The display shows the card information and imports the data into your Contacts list, including Outlook, iPhone address book, Evernote, etc.

The scanning accuracy was very good. The image is automatically cropped, properly oriented and you can easily make corrections with the text entry window adjacent to the image of the card.

You can also scan both sides of a card, particularly useful when you take notes about the individual. Or you can attach a picture of the person. Available for iPhone, Windows phones and Android phones. ($3.99)

Twixt Time

This Apple app tracks the long-term accuracy of your mechanical watch. It works by analyzing pictures you take of the watch dial over successive periods of time and then displays the daily error in seconds. It’s an interesting product for those who use fine mechanical watches, which tend to be far less accurate than a quartz watch. Typical accuracy of mechanical watches is within 10 seconds a day.

To use, you take a close-up image of the watch face and move markers using the touch screen over the tips of the hands and the center of the dial. You can monitor the accuracy of multiple watches at the same time. ($4.99)

Of course, another way to check accuracy is to use the free Official U.S. Time app, which gives you accurate time checks, and then record the information by hand.

Vintage-45

This app for the iPhone is one of several products that re-create one of the classic Hewlett Packard calculators from the 1970s and 80s. This particular 99-cent app from CuVee software does a superb job of re-creating the iconic HP-45, which, along with the HP-35, made up the world’s first pocket scientific calculators.

Key clicks and displays are accurately re-created, and it uses reverse Polish notation for data entry, just as the originals. The company also offers a free version of the HP-67, a later model, along with a simulated paper tape displayed on the screen.

New smartphone stand,
camera timer app

For all smartphones, insert the Keyprop prong into the headphone jack, and Keyprop rests against the front panel to prop up your phone. Courtesy photo

KeyProp is a clever tripod and stand that fits on your keychain. The key-like device fits onto a phone using one of its connectors to prop up the phone for taking pictures, reading, watching a video or playing a game. It comes with an app, KeyCam, which provides a camera timer so you can be in the picture. Clap your hands to start the countdown timer.

Since Keyprop is on your keychain, you always have it at your fingertips. For all smartphones, insert the prong into the headphone jack, and the Keyprop rests against the front panel to prop up your phone. Adjust the angle of the stand by propping the stand on your keys. It works with phones, with or without cases or bumpers. The product is now on Kickstarter and will retail for $15. (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alisonw/keyprop-simple-smartphone-stand-self-timer-app)

The Pear Sports training system is a clever approach for those who do personal workouts. It’s designed to make these workouts more effective by providing a level of feedback and interactivity that’s previously only been available with a coach by your side.

It uses your iPhone to provide audio from a professional coach and to maintain a proper exercise level by monitoring your pulse.

Pear is the brainchild of co-founder and president, Kristian Rauhala, a local entrepreneur who also founded H2O Audio, a San Diego company that makes waterproof headphones and iPod cases for water sports participants.

I spoke with Kristian in his office in Solana Beach. Rauhala, born in Finland, came to San Diego to work for Nokia. He’s a triathlete and surfer, and he combined those interests with his wireless and mobile experience to develop Pear. His initial product used an electronic device with a small iPod affixed, but this latest iPhone-based product adds more features and costs half the price.

While I’m not an expert in marathon training or running — an occasional bike ride is my preference — the product has been getting much praise from several friends who have been using it extensively since it first came out late last year.

With the unusually named “PEAR Mobile Training Intelligence,” it uses a downloadable app on the iPhone 4S or 5 to provide personalized workouts. By using a Bluetooth heart monitor that wirelessly connects to the iPhone, it’s able to provide feedback and adjust the exercise program in real time.

The Pear heart rate monitor. Photo courtesy of Pear Sports

The Pear device provides a variety of workouts with audio coaching from a wide range of athletic coaches. Each of these workouts covers a particular activity, with names such as Fat-Burn 1, Starter Running, Speed Treadmill, Fitness Walk, etc. Fitness Walk, for example, provides an 80-minute walk designed to provide a full body workout.

The product comes with 50 workouts and 11 training plans, and allows access to many more from a library on its website. They range in price from free to about $30. You select the training plan you’d like from within the app, and it’s downloaded onto the iPhone in about 30 seconds.

The coaches and trainers themselves, using a simple-to-use authoring system, create each of these plans. In our meeting we were able to create one in a matter of minutes, recording the phrases we wanted to provide for specific events. All of the audio feedback is provided using the actual voice of the trainer.

Once you download the training and are ready to begin, it prompts you to get ready, checks for a connection to the heart monitor, and tells you to begin. You’ll be provided with information along the way, such as what you’ll be doing next, and you will be prompted as you make changes to your training, move between phases, and will be told how far you’ve gone using the phone’s GPS. The app visually displays information such as calories burned, pulse rate and time. You can then archive each session.

There’s also supporting information you can read in the app from various coaches. The coaches are encouraged to create their own routines and publish them on the Pear site, much as authors do.

In addition to the free app, you need to buy a Pear kit, which includes the Bluetooth heart rate monitor that straps around your chest, and a pair of water-resistant wired ear buds to listen to the coaching instructions. I found the ear buds to be comfortable and secure in the ear, with clear and loud sound.

Pear’s water-resistant earphones. Photo courtesy of Pear Sports

During your workouts you can integrate the coaching instructions with your iTunes library or streaming music service. The music will play and then fade away when there’s a message. You can also call up information, delivered by voice, using controls on the headphones. A comprehensive website allows you to analyze your results and share them with others.

It’s a clever product that makes use of many of the iPhone’s capabilities: audio, Bluetooth, GPS and music, all to provide an enhanced workout experience.

The kit is available from Pear as well as in the Apple stores. It costs $99. It works only with iPhones 4S and 5. (pearsports.com)

New case for iPhone 5
You’d think there could be nothing new when it comes to cases for the iPhone. Yet a U.K. company has managed to create a design that’s become a huge hit at the Apple Stores. Tech21 has developed a thin, flexible case that’s lined around its inside perimeter with a material it calls D30. It’s a soft substance designed to absorb and disperse energy when the phone is dropped, yet show no signs of damage.

I bought one and have found it to work well. I dropped my phone on a concrete surface from about 4 feet and it just bounced, with no damage to either the phone or case. The Impact Mesh Case is available for about $35. (tech21.uk.com)

HTC is a Taiwanese company that began making mobile hardware products as an original design manufacturer for the Compaq iPaq line of PDAs, and rapidly grew into products for HP, Palm and other companies. HTC is highly regarded in the industry for its engineering prowess.

Several years ago, the company began developing products under the HTC brand. But like many engineering-driven companies, HTC apparently underestimated the importance of marketing and distribution, and has been trounced by Samsung in the Android phone marketplace. The HTC One represents its attempt to come back with a phone that leapfrogs the competition.

After using it for several weeks, I’ve concluded that it’s a superb product and handily beats the leading Samsung Galaxy phones and, in some ways, is even better than the iPhone 5. In fact, I can envision HTC saying when it began, “Let’s create a new phone that’s what Apple would do for their next generation iPhone.”

The HTC One has a sleek, modern design of glass and solid aluminum, reminiscent of the MacBook Air’s unibody construction, in which the back housing is machined from a solid block of aluminum.

The HTC One. Photo courtesy of HTC

The display, covered with Corning’s Gorilla glass, reaches edge to edge with no visible gaps between any of the pieces. A thin white polycarbonate plastic wall runs around the perimeter, between the glass and aluminum, fusing it all into one solid block, which weighs the same as the iPhone 5. The phone I tested came from AT&T and was aluminum in color; it also comes in all black.

But its beauty is more than skin deep. It excels from its ultra-high resolution 4.7-inch display to its improvements to the Android OS, which provide a much less complex interface along with some clever new features.

The LCD display is the highest resolution of any current product, at 468 dots per inch (compared to 326 dpi for the iPhone 5). Colors are vibrant and text looks likes a finely printed magazine page with no visible pixels. It’s probably the best phone display to date.

The One feels great in the hand, and appears slimmer than most phones because the back is thicker in the middle and tapers to a thinner edge.

It makes the Samsung products, constructed out of thin, flexible plastic, seem almost toylike. And perhaps that’s worrying Samsung, who this week apologized to Taiwan’s FCC, after being caught instructing its employees to post anonymous criticisms of the HTC phones on Taiwan websites.

Samsung would argue that its plastic construction allows the back cover to slip off to replace the battery or add more memory, which is not possible on the One.

The HTC, in fact, doesn’t appear to be designed for its battery to be replaced. (A teardown report from iSuppli shows that many parts would have to be destroyed to reach the battery.) HTC told me that the battery could be replaced at a service center, but I doubt that would be practical. In any event, the original battery should last three or four years.

In every area that I examined or tried, the construction, display, sound, UI and camera revealed a level of excellence unmatched by any other single phone.

The One uses a new version of Sense, HTC’s user interface, which significantly improves on Google’s Android interface.

There are no varying size icons that make for ugly home pages on most Android phones. Everything neatly lines up and is easy to access.

When you turn on the phone you can immediately go to your favorite four apps based on where you begin your swipe. So, it takes only one swipe to make a call or read email.

Or you can open up the BlinkFeed page, a home screen that displays content from hundreds of your favorite sources, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

It looks similar to Flipboard, a popular app that aggregates news into a virtual flip book. You view a continuous montage of images as you sweep vertically, and can touch one to open it up to a full page and dig deeper.

At first I found it a little off-putting to find hard news interspersed with Facebook gossip on the same page. But I quickly got used to it and found it to be a quick way to scan items of interest within a minute or two. Everything moved smoothly and rapidly, thanks to the fast Qualcomm quad-core Snapdragon processor.

There are two stereo speakers above and below the display. HTC calls its sound BoomSound, an unfortunate name considering the excellent clarity of the sound. The sound was crisp and particularly clear when used as a speakerphone or for listening to radio. The sound system was designed by Beats by Dr. Dre. The camera also exceeded most others and outperformed the excellent iPhone 5′s camera in low lighting. It also had a few other tricks, such as taking short videos.

A TV app turns the phone into a remote control, and by entering your cable system, you can be reminded when your favorite shows are available on your TV.

Below the display at the far left and far right are two touch buttons, back and home. On many occasions these did not light up and I was fishing in the dark for them. It’s likely a software bug. I would have preferred a real home button in the center. Also, some of the touch spots on the screen are fairly small and require careful aim. On a few occasions, when I gripped the phone by wrapping my fingers around the front edges, another function was activated.

HTC’s email app is particularly good; email is easy to read with clear, modern fonts and visible indicators of whether the mail has been unread. The calendar is not as good, as you cannot see the names of the appointments in the portrait mode.

Battery life lasts about a day, perhaps slightly longer than an iPhone 5. Call quality was excellent, and I found my Plantronics Legend Pro headset to work much better on the One than on my iPhone 5. The phone is available from AT&T for $199 (16 gigabytes) and $299 (32GB) with a new two-year contract.

So how good is this phone? One of the top phones I’ve tested. Ranked among those I have reviewed I’d give it an 88/100 compared to a 92 for an iPhone 5, 75 for a Galaxy 3, 85 for a Nokia 320, and 68 for a BlackBerry Z10.

(A special note to Joe Sent Me subscribers. See the latest surprise update in the story in bold just added for you.)

I’ve written about customer service before, particularly when it comes to high tech companies. Poor customer service has caused huge problems for Dell while, on the other hand, great customer service has been an important factor in Apple’s success. Good service seems like such a great opportunity for a company to make a positive impression, one that can be communicated far and wide over social networking sites. But bad service will populate these sites even more rapidly.

When it comes to technology products, the company that chooses the side of satisfying the customer first will come out ahead every time. Yet Mophie, a company that makes battery cases hasn’t figured that out. I recently bought one for my iPhone 5 at an Apple store. The $79 Helium model worked for a day and then stopped, with the phone displaying a message that said it was incompatible as an iPhone charger. After checking the web, I found this to be a problem experienced by others.

I emailed Mophie, and two days later received a request for proof of purchase, and a second email the following day with a printable mailing label and statement saying, “If upon receipt of the product, Mophie determines that the problem is not covered by this limited warranty, you will be contacted to determine whether Mophie should repair the problem for a charge or whether the product should be returned, for an additional cost, to you as received by Mophie.”

There was nothing said about when I’d get a replacement. I told them, “nevermind,” and that I’d return it to the Apple Store.

While not exactly high-tech, on a recent trip to Kauai with my family I had two notable customer experiences, one poor and the other superb. The poor one was with Avis, a company I’ve done lots of business with for more than 20 years.

We rented a minivan for seven of us, including five- and eight-year old boys. We put little mileage on the car during the six days we had it. When we returned it, an agent checked it over carefully and gave us a receipt saying all was good. Two months later I received a letter from Avis stating that my credit card was being charged $150 for excessive sand/dirt.

Now, the car was sandy from the kidsí beach toys and sandy feet, and all of our sandals. This is Hawaii, after all, and it’s all about going to the beach!

When I called Avis’ customer service in near disbelief, they said the car must be returned in the same condition as received, said they needed to detail the car, and that it was out of service for five days. They sent me photos and, from what I saw, the sand could have been vacuumed out in 10 or 15 minutes. Yes, there was sand, but nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing they found notable when we returned the car.

I asked for some sort of compromise, suggesting I pay for a car wash, and noted that my annual rentals amount to more than $6,000 a year. The agent refused to compromise, as did her supervisor.

So they were about to lose all of my future business, all for the sake of $150. Ironically that $150 was being whittled away based on the time they spent on the phone with me and the time they would spend with American Express, who is supporting me in disputing the charge.

In one final attempt, I emailed the CEO and the VP Customer Service and related this experience. The latter responded, “As a valued customer and further review of your inquiry we will be removing the $150.00 charge.”

My question: Why are none of your people in the lower levels interested in saving a customer?

Update: The day this column ran I received an automated email from Avis thanking me for updating my account. But I didn’t update my account. What I believe happened is Avis went in and deleted a discount code I had been using for 10 years that was given to me by a former client to use. Not only did Avis delete it, but informed the past client that I was using this code.  Since my relationship with this client is past, the client requested I refrain from using it.

Now Avis certainly has the right to do this and maybe even an obligation to their corporate accounts. I contacted the two executives I had been communicating with, the CEO (Ron.Nelson@avisbudget.com) and VP Customer service (Joe.Bartee@avisbudget.com) to ask them about what might have been retribution for writing the column, and they did not respond.

On the other hand, some companies do practice great customer service and one is Alaska Airlines. On this same trip, we booked our flight to Kauai out of Oakland, so we could fly with the rest of the family leaving from the Bay Area. But a few months before we were to leave, Alaska changed their return flight time to a much later hour that would cause us to miss our connecting flight to San Diego and the rest of my family to return much too late for their kids.

When we explained the problem, Alaska said that was their only return flight, but they would find all of us flights on other airlines. They routed my family through Maui to return earlier, and booked my wife and me on a return flight with one of their competitors, Hawaiian Airlines, via Honolulu to San Diego, with a connecting flight on the tiny Go! Airlines from Kauai to Honolulu.

But on the day of the flight, Go’s single plane had mechanical problems so we couldn’t get to Honolulu, and there were no other alternate flights available. (Fortunately we found a United flight that we were able to take using mileage.)

I spoke to Alaska when I got home and they apologized, saying even though it wasn’t their airline, they’d work on getting us a refund on the non-refundable fares. Two weeks later a credit appeared on my credit card along with an email with two $150 certificates toward a future Alaska flight, apologizing for our inconvenience.

Thereís no question that I will be loyal to Alaska and use it whenever possible. As for Avis, I’ll give the company another chance, but the next time I go to Hawaii with my grandkids, I’ll be using Hertz!