After all of the rumors and speculation, the Samsung Galaxy S III is finally here but you probably have a few questions about this new Google's phone.
The Galaxy S III will go on sale in Europe at the end of this month.
No official word yet on a USA launch, except that it will come this summer.
Can the Galaxy S III Really Follow Your Every Move?
The Samsung Galaxy S III really wants to be your new best friend - your new psychic best friend.
According to Samsung’s somewhat creepy commercial (shown after the break), the Galaxy S III “follows your every move.”
Scared yet?
In reality, the Samsung Galaxy S III can do things like predict when you want the screen awake by using the front-facing camera to monitor your eyes.
If you’re watching a movie on your phone and happen to fall asleep, the phone’s display will turn off.
The Galaxy S 3 also has a feature called S Voice, which is a customized voice-recognition system.
Hmm, sound familiar?
Like Apple’s Siri, S Voice can recognize a variety of commands.
For example, you can say “snooze” when your alarm goes off and buy yourself a little more sleeping time.
You can also say “direct call” and ring somebody while you’re in the middle of a text.
You can also control the volume of your music, organize your calendar, and launch the camera via voice commands.
However, there's no word, so far, on whether S Voice works with third-party applications.
S Voice works with eight different languages, including British English and American English.
Samsung confirmed that the Galaxy S III phones will be powered by the company’s own quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor.
Oddly, however, the processor specs were not in the press materials provided by the company.
We have a suspicion that the Samsung quad-core processor is not compatible with United States' LTE networks.
If true, we might see a different processor on the Galaxy S III phones in the United States.
Samsung would not comment on what sort of processor the US versions will have when we asked.
HTC pulled a similar trick with the One X.
The global version runs on an NVidia Tegra 3 processor, while the US phone uses a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor.
NVidia’s quad-core processor was not yet compatible with US network operator AT&T’s LTE network at the time of the One X’s manufacture.
In our benchmarks, however, the US version of the One X did quite well despite having fewer cores.
Samsung made a big deal about the ease of sharing from the Galaxy S III, but from what we can tell, it looks like you can only share from your Galaxy S III to another.
Samsung has enhanced Android Beam, which allows large files to be transferred between phones quickly.
Now called S Beam, you can share music, photos, and up to 1GB of video from your Galaxy S 3 to your buddy’s Galaxy S III.
To help you understand, here's how Android Beam works on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
Samsung also enhanced its DLNA service for sharing content from your phone to your TV.
AllShare Cast lets you wirelessly connect your Galaxy S III to your TV, tablet, or PC and share files over WiFi.
However, you’ll have to buy the separate All Cast Hub accessory in order to use this feature.
The 86.3mm-thick Galaxy S III has a 4.8" HD Super AMOLED display with a 1280-pixel by 720-pixel resolution.
This is the same display technology we saw on the Galaxy Nexus.
The Galaxy S II had Super AMOLED Plus, which is actually based on a PenTile pixel structure in which pixels share subpixels.
The Galaxy S III phones, on the other hand, have full RGB displays in which the pixels have their own subpixels.
This means that HD Super AMOLED displays have lower overall subpixel density, which could translate to reduced sharpness and degraded color accuracy.
When we compared the Galaxy Nexus to the Galaxy S II, however, we didn’t notice a huge difference in display quality.
The only quality different we detected was color accuracy, especially with whites (they appeared to have a yellowish tint). We have yet to see the Galaxy SIII up close and personal, so w're not sure if it suffers from this same issue
One cool thing is that despite the Galaxy S III having a larger display than its predecessor (4.8" versus 4.3/4.5"), it isn’t much bigger.
There’s very little bezel around the phone as the display takes full advantage of the hardware real estate.
Battery life is the bane of every tech user.
Samsung claims that it won’t be an issue with the Galaxy S III as it has a larger 2100mAh battery.
For comparison, the Galaxy S II has a 1560mAh battery, while the Galaxy Nexus has a 1750mAh battery.
The granddaddy of phones with long battery life, the Droid Razr Maxx, has a 3300mAH battery.
We fear that Samsung’s all-seeing front-facing camera might put a strain on the battery life, however.
Also, phone manufacturers still haven’t worked out all the kinks with battery conservation on LTE networks.
Battery life will depend on what sort of processor Samsung is packing into its Galaxy S III phones for the United States and, as we’ve learned, this is still very much up in the air.
The Samsung Galaxy phones have always performed quite well in our camera subjective tests.
While we haven’t personally gotten our hands on the Galaxy S III’s 8-megapixel camera, we can tell you a little bit about its new features.
According to Samsung, the Galaxy S III will have zero shutter lag.
The company also claims that the camera will start in “less than one second.”
The Galaxy S III will also have a burst-shot mode, a feature we saw on HTC’s One phones.
The Galaxy S 3 camera also will have a feature called “Best Photo,” which will automatically select your best photos out of a series of eight photos taken in succession. But do you really want your phone to be your photo assistant?
Samsung announced a slew of accessories, including a C Pen stylus (which seems pretty similar to the S Pen on the Galaxy Note), an AllShare Cast Hub for wireless streaming, a docking station for your desk, a wireless charger, a car kit, and an HDMI adapter.
Samsung also announced the S Pebble “music companion” MP3 player.
Why does this accessory look so familiar?
Oh yes, in 2009, we reviewed the Samsung Pebble MP3 player which looks strikingly similar to the S Pebble.
Is the Galaxy Nexus Outdated Now?
No, relax.
It might not have as many cores as the Samsung Galaxy S III, and the display might be a little smaller, but don’t feel bad if you just walked out of the store with a brand new Galaxy Nexus.
Your Galaxy Nexus is still an excellent, current phone and offers something the Galaxy S III does not:
A pure, untouched Google's Android experience.
Source: PCWorld
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