Samsung Galaxy S III Assessment: This Is The Phone You’ve Been Waiting For

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Short Version

The Samsung Galaxy S III is the Android phone of the minute and in several means it equals the media hype. A lot of people are delighted to see this thing hit store shelves. Our take? They won ’ t be dissatisfied.

Outstanding software characteristics paired with an attractive display and specifications that can compete with anything else on the market makes the Galaxy S III absolutely nothing short of a total delight. Physically it ’ s not a great deal of a looker – the plastic instance feels a bit chintzy – but usually you ’ re looking at the finest of the most effective.

Features:

4.8-inch 720 × 1280 Super AMOLED display
Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich
Samsung ’ s TouchWiz overlay
S-Beam/NFC
2GB of RAM
1.5 GHz dual-core cpu
8MP rear camera (1080p video capture)
1.9 MP front camera
4G LTE at available carriers
MSRP: 16GB is $ 199 on-contract, 32GB is $ 249 on-contract

Pros:

Lots of cool software program like S-Beam and Buddy Image Share
Beautiful, sizable display
Solid battery life

Cons:

The plastic feels reasonable and grabs prints
TouchWiz is heavy and ugly

Long Variation

Hardware/Design:

As I briefly mentioned, the Galaxy S III is made virtually entirely of plastic, save for the Gorilla glass layer its face. The design is meant to be inspired by nature, which appears absurd taking into consideration all the plastic. There isn ’ t a straight line in sight, with rounded corners and tapered edges.

The plastic along the back has a cleaned look to it, however it feels slick and grabs up prints. The blue model is worse than the white, though, with the white variation just clinging to dirt, dirt and some other ugly flecks while the blue just likes the blemish.

The phone is exceptionally thin (.34 – inches), taking into consideration the dimension of the display, and with a weight of 4.3 ounces it feels a little too light. You understand– the low-priced kind of light. Once more, we come back to the plastic.

Now, I comprehend that building this phone out of metal or some other (more superior) materials would certainly have made ease-of-use a bit more difficult. There are several radios in this person, along with an NFC chip, and almost all the things runs effortlessly. With a metal structure, the exact same smooth ease-of-use would certainly be far more tough to accomplish.

An elongated residence button sits merely below the display, with a volume rocker on the left edge, lock button on the right, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack on the top left corner. The camera is square on the back of the phone with a speaker grill on the right and LED flash on the left. MicroUSB access is on the bottom.

Software:

The Samsung Galaxy S III is stuffed with software program characteristics. To begin, the phone runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, with Samsung ’ s TouchWiz UI slapped on top. I ’ m not a massive supporter of TouchWiz in terms of visual (I much prefer pure Android ICS), however at least the custom overlay includes a couple of helpful bits like resizeable widgets and navigational shortcuts in contacts.

However that ’ s absolutely nothing contrasted to the things Samsung has actually done with NFC and WiDi (WiFi Direct).

For one, Samsung has actually introduced a new way to make some cash, called TecTiles. TecTiles are essentially stamp-sized NFC stickers, and work with any of Samsung ’ s NFC-equipped phones, allowing individuals to program specific tiles to do numerous actions when tapped. So a TecTile on my night stand might set an alarm and reduced the ringer volume (in preparation for sleepy time), while a TecTile on my front door may connect me to my house WiFi network. The service works well, and the only real complaint I have about TecTiles is the fact that they cost $ 14.99 per a pack of five.

Another NFC-friendly attribute is Samsung ’ s S Beam. It works similarly to Android Beam however functions over a higher distance, letting users share material in seconds without a WiFi or cell signal. This includes the sharing of photos, video presentations, songs, websites, etc.

. In my experience S Beam worked well and transmitted content rather quickly between machines. The major worry is merely how much usage S Beam will get. Sure, the Galaxy S III will certainly be a popular phone, however that doesn ’ t indicate that everyone in a given group of good friends is going to go buy one.

The GSIII additionally comes loaded with Samsung ’ s new GroupCast function, which syncs Galaxy S III machines so you can share a PDF, PowerPoint, or photo gallery presentation. The feature appears like it would certainly be valuable for workers in the industry or from the place of work, particularly thinking about that Samsung is providing an enterprise-friendly variation of the tool. It also lets individuals make marks on the presentation, though I wouldn ’ t consider this a partnership tool because the marks disappear reasonably quickly and can ’ t be conserved.

The phone attributes Samsung ’ s cloud-syncing/sharing service AllShare Play, letting users share material on any sort of AllShare-connected devices like Galaxy tablets, DLNA-capable TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-Ray members, as well as Samsung ’ s Smart Televisions and Windows Personal computers running the AllShare Play app. This lets users pull files that are saved on house tools and throw a flick from their Galaxy S III to the TV.

Along with these significant functions, the Galaxy S III additionally has some little touches that make it a much simpler machine to utilize. Things like movement controls (tilting the phone to zoom in on images, or panning the phone to move images from one home screen to the next) seem a bit arbitrary, as it ’ s just as fast and seamless to touch to zoom or slide my finger throughout the screen to reorganize icons. However, attributes like the capability to lift the phone to your face while in a text message discussion to start a call makes sense. The phone also dims brightness when it ’ s set down, conserving you battery, and gives a little extra alert when you ’ ve been away from your phone if you ’ ve failed to see a telephone call or message.

The most significant frustration in computer software (and let it be understood, I ’ m seriously pleased with the characteristic set offered here) is S Voice. It ’ s basically a Siri competitor, allowing you to make commands with your voice. To start, it ’ s not as brilliant as Siri when it comes to hearing natural foreign language (“ program me the nearest burger joint ” confused the heck out of it). Second, it has less performance than Siri. It ’ s a fine feature yet it merely appears like a copy that isn ’ t done very too. (And trust me, that ’ s not to point out that Siri works well by any sort of methods).

Pop Up Player, which lets you proceed playing a video presentation in a smaller window above some additional job, is also a clever feature as multi-tasking becomes ever-important to us. Flipboard is pre-loaded on the machine, as are a lot of carrier apps.

Camera:

The camera on the Galaxy S III is super quickly, though I can easily ’ t say I ’ m completely blown away by image quality. Compared to photos taken with my iPhone 4S, all the things shot with the Galaxy S III appears washed out and drab. Fortunately, there are lots of different scene methods, focus configurations, exposure, ISO, white balance, and different results that must help you find your way to the photo you desire.

However maybe to offset the less-than-impressive image quality, the Samsung Galaxy S III video camera has a few software program revelations that make sure to allure. There is rush shot, which takes up to 20 photos at a price of 3 pictures per 2nd and greatest shot, which snaps eight images and automatically offers you the most efficient one based upon criteria like blinking, grinning, illumination, etc. The Galaxy S III will certainly even let you take still pictures as you tape-record 1080p video presentation, and has an HDR mode.

More significantly, the GSIII camera has a shooting method called Buddy Image Share. It recognizes faces in images and lets you tag them with the contact ’ s name. From there, the phone will certainly constantly recognize the distinction between John Biggs and Matt Burns and let me share pictures with them directly from their name-tag.

Share Shot is one more very important video camera function, as it allows you to share pictures as you take them with up to 5 GSIII gadgets with WiFi Direct. So let ’ s state you ’ re at a birthday party with your friends and would like to make certain everyone can easily take pleasure in the photos later on. Just open up Share Shot and link with the gadgets you would like to share with. From there, every pic you take will appear in their galleries too till you select a different shooting mode.

All in all the GSIII video camera has quite a couple of tricks up its sleeve, but if it ’ s merely a lovely picture you ’ re searching for, you might must to keep looking.

Comparison shot between the Samsung Galaxy S III (left) and the iPhone 4S (right):

Display:

You really can ’ t fail with this display. Samsung ’ s HD Super AMOLED screens are the very best out there, and at 4.8 inches there ’ s plenty of incredibly crisp material to enjoy. Blacks are deep, colors are bright, and there ’ s really no differentiation between pixels. In fact, the 4.8-inch display has 306 pixels per inch, making it one of the biggest pixel-dense displays I ’ ve ever before seen.

Past that, there ’ s the size of the display to consider. Proding up against the 5-inch mark, the Galaxy S III display is much bigger than I ’ m comfy with. However the key to slapping giant screen on a phone and keeping it comfortable is machine and bezel thickness. The phone is already very thin, allowing even smaller hands to hold the gadget solidly.

However the bezels of the Galaxy S III is exactly what actually conserves the day. They take up less than half a centimeter on each side, allowing a substantial screen to fit on a fairly relaxed phone. The rounded corners and curved edges additionally aid with hold and executing one-handed actions.

Performance:

HTC has been kicking ass recently when it concerns benchmark screening, but there ’ s a new sheriff in town. The Samsung Galaxy S III beats out every Android phone I ’ ve ever before tested in all three exams we run. In Quadrant, which tests everything from CPU to memory to graphics, the Galaxy S III scored a remarkable 4911. The HTC One S can be found in 2nd with 4371, while many additional phones (consisting of the Galaxy Note) stay well below the 3000 mark.

Where browsing is concerned, the Galaxy S III pulled in a score of 103,780 contrasted to the One S ’ s 100,662. Contrasted to most phones, however, the GSIII wins by a long shot as we typically see scores around the 60,000 mark.

And as a testimonial to both the phone and the power of AT&T ’ s 4G LTE network, I can carefully say that this phone is quickly. We saw an average of 9.6 Mbps down and 8.39 Mbps up, which is exceptional. I have yet to see the Galaxy S III have any sort of concerns in terms of performance, which says a lot considering that this phone is going above and beyond in regards to both hardware and computer software. I can ’ t inform you just how grateful I am for that 2nd GB of RAM.

Battery:

Here ’ s the bargain with battery life. The Samsung Galaxy S III has a 2100mAh battery, which is relatively sizable contrasted to some other phones on the market. Be that as it may, all the extra functions that make the Galaxy S III outstanding (like the NFC and WiFi Direct stuff) end up tugging quite vigorously at the battery. Pair that with a 4G LTE radio and there ’ s bound to be some trouble.

That stated, the Galaxy S III lasted a full five hours and fifteen minutes in our battery test. That ’ s fairly damn good, taking into consideration that the screen is never ever off during a steady Google Image search. In real-world scenarios, it must a minimum of make it with dinner time, and depending on your usage, it might even hang with you with those late evening parties.

To offer you a little context, the Droid 4 only hung in there for three hours and forty-five minutes while the Droid RAZR Maxx (Motorola ’ s battery beast) remained with me for a spectacular eight hours and fifteen moments. The HTC One S lasted just under 5 hours.

An additional plus is that the battery is detachable, so if you ’ re a serious power-user you can easily constantly purchase another battery and change them out throughout the day.

Head-To-Head With The One X And iPhone 4S:

Conclusion

In the end, the Samsung Galaxy S III is the phone you ’ ve been awaiting. It ’ s normally well-built, it has an amazing display, solid battery life, lots of intriguing functions and it just works well. That ’ s not something I locate myself saying extremely typically of Android phones.

When individuals ask me exactly what phone they ought to buy, or if they should wait for this or that (and trust me, I get asked this a bunch), I consistently state, “ No, never hang around. Just buy the greatest phone available today, and don ’ t worry about spending a little more than you ’ d wish to due to the fact that you ’ ll utilization it every day for about two years. ”

But over the past few months, when phandroids come at me requesting phone suggestions, I ’ ve been informing them to wait. And you know just what, I ’ m grateful I did. Like the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy S that came before it, this is the Android phone to beat.

It ’ s the phone you ’ ve been hanging around for.