Reaching The Mark? The New Samsung Galaxy S3

Right, so I have to get clear off-the-bat, that I'm not a big fan of Samsung phones. As I've said in previous posts, there was something with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that didn't quite 'click' with me and I think that was down to the way Samsung phones handle the front end of Android Ice Cream Sandwich. But, needless to say, I do know that the new Samsung Galaxy S3 will have been eagerly awaited by those Galaxy S2 fans out there, and to those of you that this is aimed at, this could be the phone of the year for you. Samsung's new 'flagship handset' so-to-speak. So to keep this as professional as I can, I will try to be as un-biased as possible and give it the credit it deserves. 

One of the things I really disliked about the Galaxy S2, was it's flat, boring, rectangular shape, almost without any curves whatsoever. Samsung have ditched this, and opted for a more oval shaped approach, very much like the Galaxy Nexus. (Which I have to say, is a very pretty phone), and lets be fair... What your phone looks like, is becoming more and more important when choosing it. So already, Samsung have got a +1 in my books for the looks of the Galaxy S3. It's also considerably bigger than its predecessor, the S2. 4.8 inch corner to corner, JUST slightly larger than my HTC One X, making it one of the largest smartphones on the market. Obviously no where near the size of the Samsung Galaxy Note... but that's just ridiculous :P

Another interesting feature coming from Samsung with the S3, is that you can now get it in either white or blue... That's a new one... I can't say I've seen many blue phones about. This will add somewhat a distinction to the handset when stood around on the train, bus stop, or wherever you are when looking at what phone the person next to you is using. You'll easily be able to identify that it's a Galaxy S3.

Following in the Galaxy Nexus' footprint (and in keeping up with the trend), the new Galaxy S3 is also has a true HD screen, matching the HTC One X's 1280 x 720, although the S3 uses Super AMOLED screen, whereas the HTC One X uses Super LCD 2. I'm sure there will be some uber boffins out there that will correct me on this, but to me, the truth is that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between all these technologies, as both theses screens are superb.

The Galaxy S3 comes with an 8-megapixel camera, which is the same resolution as last year's Galaxy S2. Although It might not have increased the pixel count, it does have some new and quite cool features, including one of my favourites from the Galaxy Nexus, which was its ability to capture a shot the split second you hit the shutter button, with no lag whatsoever, thus making sure you NEVER miss a shot, as well as other common features such as face and smile detection.

The S3 packs a powerful quad-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz (not quite the 1.5GHz of the HTC One X - but what's 0.1GHz between friends), which should make it more than capable when playing high-resolution video and graphically demanding games. However, I have noticed with the HTC One X, that as phones get more powerful, the apps and games that are released are equally becoming more demanding, making it un-noticeable that you are using a phone with just as much (or in some cases) more power than  your home PC or laptop. But I suppose, that was to be expected. Needless to say, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is definitely up there with the big boys when it comes to processing power.

All the usual toys are packed into the S3 too, such as Samsung Beam (S Beam), which works very similar to the NFC features on HTC and other android phones, allowing you to instantly pass data from one phone to another, only this time, as apposed to going over NFC, S Beam uses wifi, making it slightly faster (if that's possible).

I think the newest toy to come with the Galaxy S3 is the new S Voice... a strike back at Apple's Siri. Siri well and truly stole the majority of the limelight in the aftermath of the iPhone 4S launch: It could be said, that the iPhone 4S was marketed almost exclusively for it’s voice assistant feature. But what the people loved, more than actually productive stuff like scheduling appointments or sending texts, were the more... random commands (some of which are admittedly hilarious), such as telling Siri 'I love you' and asking 'where is the best place to hide a body?'. Each one coming back with a witty answer, such as 'but we barely know each other' and listing places such as local tips, morgues and rivers. But now it's Samsung's turn. In addition to initiating calls, S Voice can wake the phone, request songs, send emails and text messages, use the calendar app, adjust the volume, capture photos, snooze the alarm and enquire about the weather, making Siri old news. For now, Samsung says this feature will support eight languages, including, among others, Spanish, German, Korean and American / British English.

In Summary, it would seem that there's not a great deal of change with the Galaxy S3, other than upgrading all the major components... but, with the S2 being such a huge success, there wasn't a great deal to change other than bringing it in to the current (ever changing) times. And although I won't be rushing out to get my hands on one, I'm confident it will be the success that the Galaxy S2 was last year.