The Samsung Galaxy S3 is Samsung’s flagship phone for 2012 and is the replacement for the hugely successful Galaxy S2. In the first two months since its launch, the S3 sold more than 10 million units, making it the top-selling Android phone ever.
What makes the S3 so amazing? There are many reasons.
First of all, the enormous 4.8 inch Super AMOLED display blurs the distinction between a traditional phone and a tablet. It’s massively bigger than the iPhone 4S’s measly 3.5 inch screen, and this makes it an ideal platform for playing games, watching videos, browsing the web, or simply typing and using the phone’s everyday features. Super AMOLED is an advanced technology that results in screens that are brighter than ordinary LCD screens, have better contrast and use less battery power. The screen is HD too, with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels, again outperforming the iPhone’s Retina display.
The next thing to notice is the S3′s quad-core processor. With each core running at a speedy 1.4GHz, this is a powerhouse that is more than capable of running demanding apps and producing super-smooth video and graphics. An enormous 1GB of RAM backs this up. The device also comes with up to 64GB of built-in memory, so there’s no shortage of storage for apps, music and video.
The Galaxy S3 runs Google’s Android operating system and comes with Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4.0) installed. An upgrade to Jelly Bean (4.1) is expected soon. On top of this, Samsung have loaded their own TouchWiz user interface. This incorporates some exciting changes, including “S Voice”, an advanced speech recognition interface. S Voice is in some ways similar to Apple’s Siri, and enables you to give voice commands to your phone. Samsung have incorporated other features into the user interface that enable this smartphone to be uncannily smart, for example, using the camera to detect when you are using the phone and to stop the screen from going dark.
Battery life is another strong point of the phone. While all modern smartphones struggle with battery life, the S3 has a much larger battery than most, and will easily make it through a full day of heavy activity.
The camera too is excellent. With 8 megapixels and a full 1080p HD video recorder, it’s a match for the best camera phones. Advanced features like burst shot automatically takes 8 photos one after another and the camera chooses the best based on exposure levels and blur.
The S3 is top for connectivity as well, with all bases covered. It’s a 3G phone with HSDPA for fast data downloads and uploads, in addition to Wi-Fi. It also has USB and Bluetooth of course, a standard headphone connector and the ability to wirelessly connect to a high definition TV. It also features NFC, which is a new wireless technology that may enable secure payments with your phone in the next few years.
Physically the Galaxy isn’t a small phone, as you’d expect for a device with such a large screen. Nevertheless, Samsung have made it super thin (just 8.6mm), and it isn’t a heavy phone, thanks to its lightweight plastic casing. Some people might prefer the metallic casing of the HTC One X, but despite its flimsier looks, the Sammy is just as strong and durable as rival smartphones.
Of course, a product like this isn’t going to be cheap. But the strong competition in the mobile phone market has reduced the price to less than £30 per month on a two-year contract, which is less than the year-old iPhone 4S.
By Steve Morris at Mobile Phones UK.
I overhead a rumor that the European version of Samsung Galaxy S3 has more features/possibilities than the American version possibly caused by the Apple-Samsung tussle but am not sure.
Can someone please confirm to me if this is true as its critical for me to know this before ordering the phone online.