Samsung Galaxy S4 is a former flagship device from the Korean Smartphone Supergiant. In the meantime, the Core 2 was launched in July this year. It is interesting to keep the Core 2 and the last generation flagship S4 side by side and figure out how they stack up against each other. On the other hand, The Lumia 535 is the present generation Windows Smartphone released by Microsoft this month. Powered by Windows Phone 8.1 OS, it is also a formidable device in the same range as the Core 2.
In terms of the technical specifications, the Samsung Galaxy Core 2 is rather simple with a 4.5 inch, 207ppi display supporting a screen resolution of 480X800. In comparison to that, the Galaxy S4 has a Super AMOLED full HD 1080p display with 441ppi (double than that of the Core 2).
Compared to them, the Microsoft Lumia 535 has an IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors, 540 x 960 pixels display resolution on a 5.0 inches screen (~220 ppi pixel density). Both the Microsoft Lumia 535 and the Galaxy Core are dual-SIM devices, which gives it an advantage over the Galaxy S4.
If you constantly travel between countries, getting a dual-SIM phone is a good idea. You don’t need to turn the power off while changing SIM cards. The S4 lack such an option. In terms of design, both of the Samsung devices are almost similarly designed but the S4 looks fresher.
Like most Lumia phones, the 535 has a trademark rectangular frame with a simple, no-nonsense design. Coming to the software platform, the Lumia runs on the latest updated Windows Phone 8.1 OS. The Core 2, on the other hand, runs on the Android Kitkat 4.4.2 version. The S4 was released with the v4.2.2 Jelly Bean version but can now be upgraded to v4.4.2 Kitkat version as well.
Under the hood, the Microsoft Lumia 535 work runs on a Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset. It has an Adreno 302 GPU. Specs like that make this phone a rather entry-level device. The Galaxy S4 runs on the massive Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chipset with a Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 and quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPUs.
It has the PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU. Compared to that, the Core 2 has a simple Quad-core 1.2 GHz with 768 RAM, 4GB internal storage upgradable to 64GB with a micro SD card. The S4 and the 535 have a 2GB and 1GB RAM respectively.
The latter is upgradable to 128GB compared to 64GB on the other two devices. The Galaxy S4 has a 13MP primary camera and a 2MP secondary camera. Both the primary and secondary cameras on the Lumia 535 are 5 megapixels each. The Core 2 has a 5MP rear camera and a rather disappointing VGA secondary camera.
