There has been a lot of hype about the SIII and I was very keen to get my paws on the phone. After a few days with the phone, I have to say that I am very impressed.
First impressions
The phone is light, very thin and rather pleasing to the eye. There is not a lot of wasted space around the screen area. Even though I had the phone a few days, I barely scratched the surface on what this phone is capable of.
Also, the new features are not gimmicks, but actually functions that will assist people when using the phone.
The phone uses the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system.
Screen, Videos and pictures
The screen is a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED (Very clear) with a resolution of 1280×720.
Recording of videos is simple enough and the focus seems to keep up quite well. The camera is capable of 1080pixel video recording at 30fps.
The camera on this phone seems to have made quite a leap ahead. You can pan the phone/camera and it will automatically take pictures which it then stiches together to give you a panoramic image. Also it has a burst mode which is a rapid picture taking mode, allowing you to take many pictures of either a fast moving object, or to simply take the best image from a number of shots.
The camera is an 8 mega pixel on the back of the phone and a 1.9 mega pixel camera on the front.
Speed
The S3 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Quad-Core 1.5GHz processor, which makes it one of the fastest phones around at the moment.
Music
The sound through the speakers is good enough. But the great thing about Samsung’s AllShare Play is that you can play the media through other devices that have the AllShare feature – like your TV, notebook or hi-fi. I know any DLNA enabled device can share media – the AllShare just makes it simpler.
Telephone
The telephone sound is good, the only drawback was when the volume is high, the people battle to hear you on the other side – it seems to echo quite a bit (only when the volume is loud).
Battery
The battery seemed to last longer than other smartphones – excessive use in a day will drain the battery before the day is out – GPS, Navigation, Music, Bluetooth etc, but on regular usage the phone lasted at least a day and a half sometimes two.
Contacts
Easy to work the contacts view, once the contact is selected you get all the information that is gathered about that person – including Google+ of course. Cool idea from Samsung here was the motion to your ear automatically dials the contact that is highlighted.
Communication
My email runs off Gmail, so getting connected to my email, contacts and calendar on an Android device is always slick and easy.
Office Tools
SmartOffice is available off the PlayStore – it does just about everything your MS Office on a Windows Phone will do – as I don’t compile many documents or spreadsheets on my phone this really does not bug me – but it is nice to edit the occasional document while in between meetings.
Summary
The phone has many practical features – to mention a few:
- When you are with other people who have an S3, bump the devices together and it shares media between the two phones, using the S-Beam feature.
- AllShare Cast (coming soon) allows you to project your games, videos and pictures to your big TV screen.
- The phone detects you looking at the screen and stops the phone from going into sleep or standby mode.
As I said there are many other features that I did not have time to check and test.
Would I use this as my personal phone – definitely!
Specifications
I took this from the Samsung site, but I’m sure they won’t mind.
Dimension
136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm
133g
Display
4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED
(1280×720) display
Network/Bearer and
Wireless Connectivity
2.5G (GSM/ GPRS/ EDGE): 850 / 900 /
1800 / 1900 MHz
3G (HSPA＋ 21Mbps): 850 / 900 /
1900 / 2100 MHz
4G (Dependent on market)
Memory
16/ 32GB User memory (64GB available
soon) ＋ microSD slot (up to 64GB)
Colour
Pebble Blue and Marble White
Services and Applications
S Beam, Buddy photo share, Share shot
AllShare Play, AllShare Cast (available soon)
Smart stay, Social tag, Group tag, Face zoom,
Face slide show
Direct call, Smart alert, Tap to top,
Camera quick access
Pop up play
S Voice
Burst shot & Best photo, Recording snapshot,
HDR
OS
Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Battery
2,100 mAh
Connectivity
WiFi a/b/g/n, WiFi HT40
GPS/GLONASS
NFC
Bluetooth® 4.0(LE)
Audio and Video
Audio Codec: MP3, AMR-NB/WB, AAC/AAC＋/eAAC
＋, WMA, OGG, FLAC, AC-3, apt-X
Video Codec: MPEG4, H.264, H.263, DivX, DivX3.11,
VC-1, VP8, WMV7/8, Sorenson Spark Recording &
Playback: Full HD (1080p)
Camera
Main(Rear): 8 Mega pixel Auto Focus camera with
Flash & Zero Shutter Lag, BSI
Sub (Front): 1.9 Mega pixel camera, HD recording
@30fps with Zero Shutter Lag, BSI
Sensors
Accelerometer, RGB light, Digital compass,
Proximity, Gyro, Barometer
Google™ Mobile Services
Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google
Latitude
Google Play Store, Google Play Books, Google Play
Movies
Google Plus, YouTube, Google Talk, Google Places,
Google Navigation, Google Downloads
