Samsung Galaxy S3 full review

Update: We’ve now spent a few months living day in, day out with the Samsung Galaxy S3, so check out our findings. We’ve also got the latest version of the software, so we’ve updated the review with all the fancy new features as well. www.eraofyouth.comWe have also added our early thoughts on how the Samsung Galaxy S3  specs compare to that of the iPhone 5. With the latest version of Android Samsung Galaxy S3 , a whopping 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD screen and a whole suite of Apple-beating features, is the new Samsung Galaxy S3 the greatest phone ever? Samsung has made a big deal about this new phone, not only choosing to launch it at a big and glitzy standalone event in London but also claiming nearly 10 million pre-orders before it’s even launched.

Design

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is, according to Samsung anyway, ‘inspired by nature – it sees, listens, responds, and allows you to share the greatest moments’. While this is all a little hyperbolic, the nature theme is certainly present when you handle the phone for the first time. Brushed polycarbonate – you’ve got a choice of ‘Marble White’ and ‘Pebble Blue’ – adorns the large device, which runs in with dimensions of 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6mm, despite still having to pack in a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD screen. But we’ll be very clear on this – the Galaxy S3 is not a cheap-feeling phone. It’s got a really solid Gorilla Glass 2 front, a well-packaged interior and a more robust battery cover. It’s polycarbonate rather than bog-standard plastic, although we’re not sure some people will like the more rounded nature of the design.However, despite being made of similar material, there’s no doubt that theOne X feels more premium in the hand thanks to being a touch more weighty… there’s something about something so large being so light that some will find disconcerting.

Internet

When it comes to the internet, there’s not reason to think that a phone with a quad core chip, HD screen and powerful GPU shouldn’t be able to present a stellar internet experience, and the Samsung Galaxy S3 doesn’t disappoint.

From the zoomed out web pages that offer still-legible text to the speed with which web pages render even over 3G, we’re massive fans of this phone as an internet tablet. The UI has been overhauled to present a smaller URL bar, a Forward button for easier navigation and an overall more fluid feeling to the handset. There’s only one flaw, and we’ll get it out of the way first: when zooming into text you can’t make it all reformat to fit the page the closer you zoom in. There’s a decent level of auto-fit to be had when double tapping the words, but you can’t select your own level sadly. However, the rest of the sensation is excellent – and it’s only going to get better for some regions. The UK is on the cusp of getting DC HSPA (which is capable of delivering 42Mbps connectivity), but sadly it appears the Galaxy S3 is not able to access this signal speed. Only LTE-enabled handsets will get the next-generation speeds, so other countries get the blazingly fast connectivity – although over Wi-Fi there were some lighter websites that rendered in the blink of an eye already. Web pages are rendered in clear and crisp formations that lacks for nothing compared to a larger PC screen – Flash video plays right out of the gate, although we recommend you look to pick up the Flash Player 11 app before trying out all the sites (and make sure you have Flash player enabled in the settings as well). The option to change the brightness setting for the internet browser only is now gone, with the notifications bar option now deemed to be within easy enough reach. We did like being able to have the brightness up for when we browsed, as it meant you could have a high power saving mode enabled when tracking through whichever hipster sites you frequent throughout the day, but have a colourful and bright screen for the rest of your activities, thus saving on crucial battery life.However, the overall effect is stellar; if you’re after one of the best internet phones on the market then the Galaxy S3 is certainly one of the best out there.

Camera

The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S3 is one of the biggest surprises from the Korean firm, and shows quite a step-change in the way it approaches mobile design: it’s stuck at 8MP with the sequel to the S2. We don’t think this is much of a problem – the humble mobile phone doesn’t need any more than 8MP to take good quality snaps but Samsung has always chased specs in the past, so this is an interesting move.It’s not a next-generation sensor though – we’re seeing very similar hardware as that used in the Galaxy S2 with improved (and much improved, at that) software optimisation on the phone rather than bringing stonking picture performance. One of the big claims for Android 4.0 is the speed with which snaps can be shot when out and about, and that zero shutter lag is very much in effect here with the Galaxy S3. While there’s no dedicated shutter button, getting into the camera is a piece of cake thanks to the number of options you’ve got. Making sure one of the icons on the lock screen is definitely going to help, but there’s also a little trick we uncovered that allows you to boot the camera even more quickly: hold the screen and turn the S3 into landscape mode (when on the lock screen) and the camera opens up instantly – and it’s even faster with the new update. There are a number of other features we like too: Burst mode works well, taking 20 photos in a row at around 10 per second, which is great if you trying to take a picture of your cat doing a back flip and want all of the sections. Best Shot can also be used with Burst mode (where the S3 works out the best pic for you from the selection) but you’re limited to eight shots in this scenario. We’re probably being a little bit picky, but the processing time after each Best Shot set was taken was too long in our opinion – we want to see evidence of that quad core monster in action. Plus it would be good if we didn’t have to set the Burst mode up each time we wanted to use it – on the HTC, it’s simply a case of holding down the shutter button. The front facing camera is closing in on being a decent sensor in its own right – at 1.9MP it’s capable of taking non-grainy self portraits and can even record in 720p video as well – we’re fans.

S Voice and Smart Stay

The other ‘smart’ idea Samsung had was the idea that voice recognition could work with Smart Voice – and we hope that this does actually happen as it was nowhere near Siri level on the Samsung Galaxy S2. It’s based on Vlingo, and offers you the chance to do pretty much everything Siri on the iPhone can do – it even parses Wolfram Alpha to get its information. But it doesn’t have Siri’s sense of humour – ask it what its name is, and it will tell you Wolfram Alpha. It won’t label the Nokia Lumia 900 as the best phone ever, and it also doesn’t know the meaning of life. However what it can do is simple tasks, such as opening the calendar, making an appointment or start playing a specific song or playlist. You’ll have no joy with videos and searching the web can be a bind, but for items like setting a timer or an alarm or activating driving mode, it’s perfect.Well, we say perfect – the speech recognition is still a little bit iffy at times and the network connectivity can be frustratingly slow, but if you’re in a car or somewhere else where hands free operation is a must then it’s a good tool to have. Another, larger, problem is the fact S Voice froze the phone a little too regularly, especially when activating it through Bluetooth headset or constantly jumping in and out of the app. This has sorted itself as an issue largely – and to be honest, we used S Voice so little that it wasn’t really an issue.

Smart Stay

One of the other big-hitting features Samsung is talking about is the ability to track your eyeballs to make sure the display stays lit when you’re looking at it. In theory this should mean that you can keep the screen timeout to a minimum of fifteen seconds and then never have to worry about it turning off – a little eye icon (eyecon?) appears in the notification bar when it’s tracking your peepers. In practice it works around 75% of the time… even in bright light it can sometimes still turn off the display, despite the icon showing up. In fact, the icon can pop up even when you’re wearing sunglasses – so it’s hard to trust it. However, if you’re in an evenly-lit space it will generally catch your eye and keep the display on – we just feel it should be completely flawless as a system when you’re in a well-lit area.

Contacts and calling

When it comes to contacts, the Samsung Galaxy S3 doesn’t really stray that far from where the S2 left off – especially since the Ice Cream Sandwichupdate landed. This means a pretty average-looking list of contacts, with each tagged with a photo from either Google, Facebook or one you’ve added in yourself. You may have noticed that Twitter is missing from that list – and that’s because the social networking service has been removed from the contact integration. We first noticed this on the S2 ICS update but we’re dismayed to see the same thing from the Galaxy S3. Given it’s been a stalwart for so many years on Android phones, we’re not sure why it’s been omitted from the S3 – the One X is all over it like a beaver at a wood-carving convention. One of the big plus points of Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy Nexus is the ability to see large, high-res pictures of your friends rather than teeny stamp sized pixellated messes – so we’re really confused as to why the S3 has chosen to go down the latter route. Despite there clearly being a large enough space next to the square pic to have a much longer icon, the S3 won’t let you choose such a thing. Add to this the fact the picture will stretch when you get a call from said friend, and we can only recommend you head into the Facebook app and manually add their picture from a profile – which is both time-consuming and stalkerish. Let’s not get too hung up on the fact that the contacts system is uninspiring though – it’s still one of the best out there even if it is mostly stock Android. For instance, you have not only a dedicated ringtone but a dedicated buzz pattern so each person is still recognisable in the pocket, and from the menu system you can set defaults on everything from email addresses to names. Plus the fact there are loads of ways to save contacts in other places – Samsung’s online account mirrors Google’s by letting you merge them all together, with the added bonus that Sammy’s doesn’t have the same online mishmash of names when you go to browse it.

Calling

Calling on the Samsung Galaxy S3, to put it bluntly, couldn’t be better in our eyes. Sure, it’s a relatively simple function in today’s smartphones, but it’s still often ruined by brands not giving it enough attention. Take the likes of noise reduction – in our tests, the S3 came out top in terms of calling the same person with traffic and wind behind us. Even walking past a building site the only criticism we were given was ‘it’s a tad windy, isn’t it?’. There’s a new feature with the software update that allows ‘Extra Volume’ to be added in call (accessed through the settings menu) and it really does boost the volume from the earpiece – which was good to begin with.

Messaging

There are some that say that messaging isn’t important on today’s smartphones – but then again, there are some that say the moon is made of cheese and dinosaurs didn’t exist. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is one of the best messaging devices around – although we’re saying that about a lot of smartphones at the moment such is their prowess at talking to another person. The messaging system looks much the same as before, with yellow and blue conversation bubbles the order of the day. You can also check to see if your Android-powered buddies are online through a little green dot next to their name in the contact list – this signifies if they’re available through GTalk. You’ve also got ChatON as standard with the Galaxy S3 – this is Samsung’s version of BBM and is designed to allow you to talk to others on Samsung devices with the app installed. We struggled to find many friends running the service though – even those with Samsung phones didn’t have the app enabled or downloaded. The keyboard, like its predecessor, is not quite up to the task at the moment. We’re talking shades of grey here, as many will find it quite adequate, but in our opinion the level of accuracy when tapping out a message isn’t always the greatest. Also, the predictive text option could still do with a lot of work, getting nowhere near to the accuracy of the likes of the HTC stock keyboard or third party options like SwiftKey. The new software update adds in a new keyboard – nothing in terms of functionality, but the keys are more rounded and look a little nicer on screen. The message box for new messages is now smaller, and you can delete individual messages.You can also use the handwriting software too – but that’s painfully slow and probably more useful for certain characters instead.

Gaming

The gaming experience on the Samsung Galaxy S3 is meant to be one of the best thanks to that Mali-400MP GPU running at the heart – Samsung is promising big things from the gaming side of things as a result. It’s still something of a tradeoff though – in our opinion, the ability of the Nvidia Tegra 3 chip at harnessing all those polygons at pixels is still the most impressive on a smartphone or tablet. You can also compare the respective gaming hubs on offer – admittedly, Nvidia has created a dedicated TegraZone portal to get your hands on as many high-power games as possible, but the option from Samsung is currently almost useless. You get two zones: one for premium games, and one for the more casual player (noted as ‘Social Games). However, the premium offerings are far away from a) taxing the phone in any way and b) worth paying for in reality. Sure, there are some half decent ones in there, but nothing that compares to the likes of Riptide GP on the HTC One X.But try the likes of Grand Theft Auto 3 or Dead Space and you CERTAINLY won’t be unimpressed by the polygon management or general responsiveness of this, Samsung’s greatest gaming device yet

Battery life and connectivity

Battery life. One of the most contentious element still on smartphones and one we’re keen to see stop being an issue – and it’s thankfully nothing to worry about on the Samsung Galaxy S3.   The 2100mAh battery is designed to make sure that the large screen, with millions of pixels, isn’t going to suck down the power as fast as it might do.

That’s not to say the screen isn’t thirsty – it takes up a good portion of the battery meter each time you check in – but overall, battery life was not an issue we butted up against regularly.

Connectivity

If you’re one of those people that want to have the phone all their friends have got, then the Galaxy S3 is the one you better hope that they have.

When it comes to connectivity, it’s unsurprising that the Samsung Galaxy S3 is fully stocked – in fact we can’t think of a single thing that we’d want to see that’s missing.

As we’ve already discussed, DLNA is on board to allow easy connection to nearby devices – most of the time you’ll have to trigger this manually in the menu, but once enabled the streaming is pretty quick.

It’s not perfect by any means, and still lacks the slickness we’d like to see from wireless streaming, but should you get your set up working well you’ll enjoy being able to get files from your computer without a hassle.

Bluetooth 4.0 is on board the Samsung Galaxy S3 as well, with the standard A2DP streaming to Bluetooth headsets on offer as well.

This means when the technology starts to mature you’ll be able to create personal area networks (PANs) where you can connect up a variety of sensors and have them stream to your phone – and there are a few of those listed in the accessories section already.

Something else that’s missing from the Samsung Galaxy S3 is the ability to interact with the phone via an internet browser – a novel idea from the S2 – but given that process was as slow as pulling teeth, we really don’t miss it.