SINGAPORE -- I was awestruck when I first laid eyes on the Samsung Galaxy S 4 during its launch event in New York. But after spending more time with the year’s most highly-anticipated smartphone, it pains me to say that while still being an extremely impressive device, it might not be the quantum leap in smartphone technology that most users and critics have been expecting.

If you are familiar with the Galaxy S 3, the S 4 will look strikingly familiar. It retains the same rounded-rectangle look, with metal edges and a slippery plastic back that makes it look more like a budget smartphone than Samsung’s flagship.

But at least it is a functional design. The back is removable, so you can swap out the battery or expand your storage capabilities with a micro SD card. A lot of people prefer that added utility over the better-looking, more premium unibody design of other flagship Android smartphones such as the HTC One or the Sony Xperia Z.

One place Samsung does manage to score design points is growing the screen from 4.8 inches on the S 3 to a full 5 inches on the S4, while still making the phone thinner, narrower, and easier to grip. The Full HD Super AMOLED screen is also by far the nicest Samsung has ever made. The colours really pop, and the 441 pixels per inch ensure that text is pin sharp. It is also bright enough to be clearly readable on sunny days.

While HTC is trying to convince buyers that megapixels do not matter, Samsung went in the opposite direction. The S 4’s 13-megapixel camera is the best Android camera I have ever used by a considerable margin, and it is every bit as good as the iPhone 5’s camera.

However, the One and the Nokia Lumia 920 do take considerably better pictures in low-light conditions. The S 4 takes the same soft, noisy pictures as any other smartphone camera, but without the incredible brightness capabilities of the One.

The S 4’s greatest photographic achievement, though, is that it manages to be simple and fast while simultaneously offering the largest, most impressive feature set of any smartphone camera I have ever used.

If you are just turning the phone to Auto and firing pictures, you are missing out. Instead, you should try turning it to Eraser Mode, which detects moving objects in your photo — like the stranger that always walks by right as you take the shot — and automatically removes them. You could also scroll up to Drama Shot, which lets you grab hundreds of frames to show a photo of continuous action, like someone walking across the street or kicking a football. The Animated Photo feature lets you take a few seconds of video, then choose with your finger whether a part of the frame is still or in motion, allowing you to create animated GIFs without ever leaving the camera app.

The S 4 also comes with a whole host of new features.

There’s Air View, which allows you to hover your finger over the screen to see some information without actually clicking. The Air Gestures feature allows you to wave your hand over the phone to change between tabs or photos. There’s also Smart Scroll, with which you tilt your device to scroll, instead of using your finger and Smart Pause, which will pause a video when you look away from the screen. Finally, there’s Group Play, which lets you play a handful of selected video games with friends on the same Wi-Fi network, or use several S 4 phones to create a network of speakers.

However, these features feel like gimmicks and I hardly used any of them except for this review.

I was also disappointed with the S 4’s speed and performance. It has a 1.9 GHz quad-core processor, while the HTC One processor is clocked at 1.7GHz. Despite that, the One boots up faster, navigates through pages quicker, scrolls smoother, opens apps more quickly, and most importantly, takes photos with no shutter lag, whereas the S 4 generally takes about a second to fire off a shot.

The S 4 is far from a bad phone. In fact, were it not for the HTC One, it would be the best Android phone you can buy. If Samsung had focused all of its innovation into maximising the practical user experience—instead of highly ignorable gimmicks—it might have taken the crown.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 will be available in Singapore from Saturday, April 27, at S$998, without contract.