Finally a serious kid has arrived on the block to give some sleepless nights to iPhone 4S and HTC One X in the form of Samsung SIII.

Just after official launch of this flagship smartphone from the Korean giant, it seems to follow the footsteps of Apple’s iPhone 4S in the form of critical reviews. You may recall that when Apple presented its forth S model of smartphone, the company was blamed for adding so little to the predecessor and many predicted that it would be complete failure in the market. It is not a secret that within just a few days after its launch, Apple sold millions of iPhone 4S around the world and that was enough to keep the critics silent.

In regards to today’s hot smartphone running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich we are talking about i.e. Galaxy SIII or SGS III (which was till now called as S3), it has also come under criticism in the beginning for its looks, and some call it that the company has fallen short of people’s expectations.

It has been criticized for lack of megapixels in the camera, and for not so impressive design of screen with PenTile and lot of other features.

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Smartphone Samsung Galaxy S III is an extension of model Galaxy S II (SGS II) which has been super-successful for the company selling more than 20 million units worldwide. Actually, expectations had been running very high for this flagship of South Korean giant, and people were waiting for incredible performance, super design and everything else they could fantasize. Instead, the company has introduced a balanced gadget in terms of features and design of the newbie.

Looks and design

Externally, SGS III is not too similar to the previous model, it is made of plastic and glass, and of course glass part is the display here. By design you can’t call it a super one, it just looks like a smartphone with large screen and several buttons. It is not that eye-catchy, as you can’t expect a smooth shape of casing to draw your attention, but yes it’s thickness of 8.6 mm is something to talk about. It was expected that casing will be made of ceramics, which could have made SGS III the most unusual phone in terms of materials, but the models presented with 16 and 32 GB of memory are made of plastic. However, there are still hopes that version with the 64 GB memory will be stuffed in some other material.

Samsung Galaxy SII Vs HTC One X

Specs

Technically speaking, the new flagship reminds of HTC One X, which was released in early March. Not only technically, physically also it weighs 130 g compared to 133 g for SGS III, and its thickness is 8.9,just 0.3 more than that of Korean phone. Displays are also very close in size.  Both run Android 4.0, ICS, but have their own interfaces – Samsung uses TouchWiz UI, while One X uses Sense GUI.

 

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Hardware

Samsung has also used a quad-core processor in SGS III. Memories are 1 GB of RAM, and 16/32/64 GB for data storage. The main difference from HTC One X is that, SGS III has microSD slot, whereas in the smartphone from HTC there is 32 GB of inbuilt-memory without any provision for expansion. Display size of Samsung’s smartphone is 4.8 ” having resolution of 1280×720 pixels, using Super AMOLED matrix.

As per PC World’s Ginny Mies , SGS III may be powered by 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor which is not compatible with LTE networks in U.S, so for American market the company may have to stuff them with LTE supporting dual-core chips.

Pentile Display

Skeptics point out the presence of PenTile technology in SGS III display, due to which the screen of the flagship is brighter than TFT displays. On the other hand, usage of sub-pixels rather than same number of full pixels makes the image on screen with PenTile not so clear, as in ordinary TFT-screens. However, difference between the displays with and without PenTile can only be judged by experienced users, and that too only at a very close range. Screen of the smartphone needs to be brought to the eyes so as to see the subpixels rather than full pixels. How often do you do it for your daily work with the device?

Cameras

In regards to main camera, the smartphone is equipped with “only” 8 MP one – one more reason for critics to say that there is no improvement over SGS II no. But Samsung has a different point of view and has added other features to the camera rather than increasing the megapixels.

8-MP camera is claimed to give you a very high speed photography experience, feature to record FullHD video and excellent image quality. Company says that it will have zero shutter lag and start within a second with burst-shot mode. These can be confirmed only by the users once it hits the shelves. Videos are claimed to be of good quality even in low light conditions.

Front camera in the gadget has a resolution of 1.9 megapixels. Was it required at all? Samsung has an answer to that,  this camera in SGS III will do some additional tasks also i.e. Smart Stay: i.e. when a user reads a book or is viewing any website, smartphone using front camera will track your movements, and maintain the screen brightness comfortable for your eyes.

Other Additional Features                                                                              

In addition, SGS III voice control similar to Siri from Apple – S-Voice handles a huge number of voice commands, like control volume, organize calendar, and start camera. Besides, the phone is loaded with many other small features. For example, if you are writing a text message to someone on SGS III and then suddenly you decide to call that person, you just need to bring the phone to your ear – it will automatically dial that person. ‘Smart alert’ feature will keep you updated about any calls or texts you could have missed by alerting with vibration when you take it in hand.

Interactivity with other devices

In regard to interacting with other devices, AllShare Cast allows you to wirelessly share the content with TV and other devices, but for that you will have to acquire extra accessory called All Cast Hub. Samsung has improved upon the Android Beam functionality by introducing S Beam through which files of upto 1GB can be transferred from one S III to another one within a minute, details by PC World.

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Main improvements over Galaxy SII

Although in regard to specs the new unit doesn’t much outperform the previous model, as many would have wanted, it is clear that Samsung has done a great job and mainly they have focused on optimization and improvement of existing functions and features. Company also can pride in providing SGS III with a heavy 2100mAh battery which can make it a preferable choice for heavy users.

At the same time SGS III, scheduled for stage-wise release in early summer throughout the world, would be good bargain if its price won’t differ much from that of HTC One X, and the main advantage of SGS III over Taiwanese rival can be very simple – good battery backup. After all, flagship of HTC barely survives until the middle of the day if used actively, and SGS III, according to preliminary information will remain stable throughout the day.

Samsung has announced the Europe release date including UK for Galaxy S III as May 23. Nothing is yet official about launch in North America. In India, it is expected in June.

However, according to a report published by Android Authority, Samsung galaxy S3 or SGS III would be launched in the US somewhere in July with quad-core version for T-Mobile and LTE dual-core version for others. Two year contract price may range between $199 and $299, whereas the unlocked phone would cost about $700.

 

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