A very thorough and fair comparison. Great job. Although since you showed by example why the Galaxy S4 was better in several categories I am sure iSheep will be saying you and/or Gizmag is a paid Samsung site or some nonsense.

Samsung is looking into doing an update to reduce the amount of bloatware so that you will have more than 9 GB of storage.

I recently purchased an iPhone 5 this past year, I traded my andriod HTC Evo in for it. My thoughts were "what the heck, everyone else has them, its probably a good phone" after saying that, the iPhone, may be a good phone but after having an Android, the difference is night and day. There are so many things as far as ergonomics, button locations and the general user friendliness of an Android phone that make it far superior to the iPhone. One example, is the simple act of calling someone, in an android you can type a persons name out on your keypad and it pulls up a list of names. In the iPhone, the quickest way to call someone is to save them to your favorites, otherwise you have to go into your phone/address book/search/open contact/press call button. It defies all convenience and is so intuitively wrong that I cannot understand why it is programmed this way unless there is a patent on the android method.

Kolton, I've moved to Android, but I distinctly remember using the built-in search for *everything* on iOS, including contacts...and I found the ergonomics better, too. Double-click the home button in iOS to bring up search, type the beginning of the name and the contact comes up. That's actually something that I really miss. I don't have a hardware home button on my version of the Galaxy Note, and I hate the capacitive buttons that both light-up way too bright and are difficult for me to accurately locate without looking at the phone. I also wish I could make my display dimmer, and the "screen filter" apps on Android are only a partial fix as they by necessity totally wash-out all the color. Additionally, some headphone hardware buttons and mics work with Android, some of them don't. Since I highly value both voice search and headphone quality, this is a big deal for me. I never had that problem on iOS, since single/double/triple click of the home button (or mic button) and single/double/triple/quadruple tap of the screen are all highly integrated into the iOS system.
These are totally hardware issues, especially since the Android system is so easily customizable. I definitely prefer the Android operating system these days, and Google Now makes Android a better 'screenless' operating system than it used to be, but I'm going to be a lot more careful about both the eye-free usability and the eye-friendliness of my next device.

Will,
As always I enjoy your reviews as I believe that you not brand centric. Neither the iPhone 5 nor the S4 is really of any relevance and they both represent stopgap measures as Samsung stated they are upping it game and changing after the S4 and Apple is now (foolishly) trying again to heavily connect success with Jony Ives (a.k.a Steve Jobs branding). Apple's next release—of anything—will have to be significant on every level (minus the typical Apple hype) to make further inroads.
I see Apple becoming more like Bang & Olufsen through providing style and higher-end goods, but others taking the lead in technology. The issue is that there are brilliant designers throughout the world who are every bit as good or better than Ives. The one good aspect is that now Apple will allow more customization in its next iOS. (Talk about being late to the party!)
An even more prevalent aspect is that customers are simply expecting more from their products and that all the major players in tech are running along a similar path. In some ways, tech has become a bit boring. Even worse, the "recurring fee" is more the goal of tech companies now more than ever. So, when Steve Jobs said that the future of the computer was the computer becoming as common as appliances he really meant utilities and hence, recurring fees. The end game for tech has always been, "Show me the money."

Thaumato, Look in settings. There should be a way to dim the screen brightness. Unless I completely misunderstood what you want.

My biggest issue with all reviews around the world, not one reviewer talks about the screen visibility in direct sunlight. I had an SIII and it sucked in direct sunlight and I believe the iPhone is just as bad. For the $600 for these devices it goes to show the lack of decent review against products that are better than these two brands. Hype shouldn't sell, a product that deserves attention does.

great review except you forgot to review the phone part of the phone !!! Away from urban areas the S4 is not getting any reception where iphones can easily make calls. A big fail from me for the S4. There are much cheaper phones that are more effective. So a phone that you cannot use to phone and everything else goes by the wayside imho. :-(

Just out of curiosity, how do people carry monster phones like the S4? Women can always use a purse, but what do men do? That's one of the reasons I still use a dirt cheap flip phone. It's not smart but it excels at being a phone.

you can move apps to your microSD card using your PC connected via USB.