Samsung Galaxy S III "Review"
You might have noticed my use of quotes around review on the title. The reason is that I really don't have the patience to do a real review of my cell phone. Instead, I will just mention the points that came to my attention about it, specially as they compare to my previous smartphones - a N95 and a Samsung Galaxy S.
First of all, while some people complained about the design, I really liked both the blue and the white versions of S III. They look great to me, and while the back covers don't feel actually sturdy, they feel strong enough, and less like cheap plastic than my S did.
One factor of my purchase was the camera. The camera on the S didn't have a flash, and even photos that didn't require flash looked bad - my N95 beat it by an enormous margin. The camera on the S III is much better. Pictures look reasonably OK, the flash works fine, and an important factor is that it is fast. You can just pull the phone out of your pocket, put up the hold screen, swipe up on the camera icon and you are ready to shoot. And you can take several pictures in a few seconds.
I have tried the panorama option again, and while it is fast, I think the resulting photo is pretty bad. I'll try to add a comparison later, but I would recommend taking a bunch of pictures manually and then joining them with Microsoft ICE instead. It is free, fast, and easy to use (Yes, I realize these are hardly ever said about MS products, but it is true). Just take the pictures all in one direction, it works better with them in order.
I really liked the new display. Everything looks great, and while I was worried that I'd bothered by the extra size in my pocket, it actually feels smaller than the S, probably because it was much thicker.
I have played a few games (mostly from the Android Humble Bundles) and they all looked great. I was quite impressed by the download speeds, looks like I was getting 1MB/s (my connection maxes out at 2.2MB/s) downloading the games. Very nice.
The OS seems to have been improved quite a bit. Everything looks better and behaves in a more natural way. I hadn't played with the voice recognition before, but I am impressed - I don't think it missed a single word in my tests.
One problem I had with the S is that I get bad reception in the house. It is still not great, but with the S III it seems to be a little better.
I only had it for a few days, so I can't make real comparisons of battery performance. Seems to be around the same ballpark as the S (when new, of course - now it is just horrible).
Overall I really like it so far. AFAIK it is the best smartphone in the market today (I have an iPad but I am not an Apple fan).
I'll probably update this as I use it more.
Galaxy S III boot time: 23 s. The Galaxy S clocked in at 36s, but still spent some time searching for files, which stopped you from launching the music player, among others.
Call Sound: seems better and louder than the S.
GPS: Pretty awesome. Got a lock 5 seconds after turning it on - inside the house!
First of all, while some people complained about the design, I really liked both the blue and the white versions of S III. They look great to me, and while the back covers don't feel actually sturdy, they feel strong enough, and less like cheap plastic than my S did.
One factor of my purchase was the camera. The camera on the S didn't have a flash, and even photos that didn't require flash looked bad - my N95 beat it by an enormous margin. The camera on the S III is much better. Pictures look reasonably OK, the flash works fine, and an important factor is that it is fast. You can just pull the phone out of your pocket, put up the hold screen, swipe up on the camera icon and you are ready to shoot. And you can take several pictures in a few seconds.
I have tried the panorama option again, and while it is fast, I think the resulting photo is pretty bad. I'll try to add a comparison later, but I would recommend taking a bunch of pictures manually and then joining them with Microsoft ICE instead. It is free, fast, and easy to use (Yes, I realize these are hardly ever said about MS products, but it is true). Just take the pictures all in one direction, it works better with them in order.
I really liked the new display. Everything looks great, and while I was worried that I'd bothered by the extra size in my pocket, it actually feels smaller than the S, probably because it was much thicker.
I have played a few games (mostly from the Android Humble Bundles) and they all looked great. I was quite impressed by the download speeds, looks like I was getting 1MB/s (my connection maxes out at 2.2MB/s) downloading the games. Very nice.
The OS seems to have been improved quite a bit. Everything looks better and behaves in a more natural way. I hadn't played with the voice recognition before, but I am impressed - I don't think it missed a single word in my tests.
One problem I had with the S is that I get bad reception in the house. It is still not great, but with the S III it seems to be a little better.
I only had it for a few days, so I can't make real comparisons of battery performance. Seems to be around the same ballpark as the S (when new, of course - now it is just horrible).
Overall I really like it so far. AFAIK it is the best smartphone in the market today (I have an iPad but I am not an Apple fan).
I'll probably update this as I use it more.
Galaxy S III boot time: 23 s. The Galaxy S clocked in at 36s, but still spent some time searching for files, which stopped you from launching the music player, among others.
Call Sound: seems better and louder than the S.
GPS: Pretty awesome. Got a lock 5 seconds after turning it on - inside the house!
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