A Word Of Warning For Would Be Samsung Galaxy S IV Buyers

SquareTrade, the phone-insurance firm, has a warning for would-be Samsung Galaxy S IV buyers. The company’s newest handset may be bigger, and lighter than its predecessor, but it is also easier to break, according to Bloomberg. SquareTrade gave the Galaxy S IV a score of seven based on drop and water tests. The worse possible score is a 10. By contrast, the Galaxy S III received a 6.5 when it first arrived in 2012. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone 5 scored a five. As a result, SquareTrade predicts that one in five Americans will buy Samsung’s newest phone this year. Of those, one in four will break it within the first 12 months. This translates into 6 million broken handsets in 2013. In a statement, SquareTrade concludes:

While the S4 proved slightly more water resistant than its predecessor the S3, Samsung’s new Galaxy phone actually performed worse in most other categories.

First announced in March, Samsung’s latest handset has a 5-inch 1080p SuperAMOLED display, a 13-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front camera, and 2GB of RAM. In addition, it’s touted as the first, and currently only, smartphone with an octo-core processor. See also: Going Rogue: The Next iPhone Could Make The Samsung Galaxy S IV Look Like A Turtle, and Samsung Galaxy S IV: Impressive Hardware Yet 'Familiar' Software.

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