

Engadget's Samsung Galaxy S III review - SandB0x
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-review/

======
latch
I don't like replacing my gadgets all the time. My first, and only, smartphone
is an original Galaxy. I hate it. I especially hated it when I got it, now I
just...endure it.

However, when it dies, I'm definitely not buying a Samsung product, and
probably not buying Android. I cannot scream the word "brand" loud enough.
There's so much choice available, that when your customers feel ripped off,
they'll go elsewhere.

GPS has never worked. Updates were very slow to be available. Using their
official tool my phone bricked when an update finally was available. Until I
put cyanogenmod on it, it stuttered and apps crashed. Even when it was still
relatively new, there were apps that it couldn't run (Lionheart). My carrier
put a porn-buying app on it (yes, I hold Samsung and Google at least partially
responsible for that).

Brand, brand, brand, brand, brand. The fact that, 2 years later, I still get
upset when I see the words "Samsung" or "Galaxy S", tell you something about
consumer behavior...it isn't just me...US car manufacturers went through it
too.

~~~
jvc26
Sounds like you've got a faulty handset - my first reaction to non-functional
GPS would be to take the phone back?

~~~
ippa
Right. When I first tested it.. it kind of worked. It was probably slow then
too, but I didn't have much to compare with at the time. As I started using it
more regularly later on it became more clear it was slow and that sometimes it
didn't work at all. There was tons of talk about this on various forums...
there was some fixes released and I always assumed this would get fixed in an
later update. But time and updates went by and it never got good. Then it was
too late to return the phone. If they even would have accepted a "sometimes
very slow GPS" as a return-argument in the first place.

~~~
andybak
I agree. I still feel bitter about the GPS and I swore to 'punish' Samsung by
boycotting them in future.

However - when I broke my phone, the Galaxy S II was by far the most suitable
phone for me short of switching to iOS which I didn't want to do for a few
different reasons.

'Punishing' Samsung was less than rational and so I took a chance on them
again. And I've been extremely happy with it. It's way way better than the
Galaxy S and I have no real complaints about it. So - Samsung screwed me on
the GPS last time. I'll have to let them off - or rather - stop
anthropomorphising a large corporation in ways that don't really make much
sense...

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fossuser
Is it a Nexus line device? Is it running stock Android?

No to both? -- Do not buy.

Why is it so difficult for hardware manufacturers to refrain from putting
their poor attempts to improve stock android on their devices. Do they not
realize they'd actually be able to more effectively differentiate themselves
if they just left it stock?

~~~
viraptor
There are modifications and modifications. Some of them are almost useless
(Samsung hubs, their own store, etc.), while others are pretty good actually
(UI).

I know many people don't like it, but I actually prefer their UI to the stock
Android one. I haven't actually heard anyone saying why exactly they don't
like the Samsung version though.

~~~
andybak
Yeah. I've switching from stock Android to Touchwiz versions and Touchwiz
really isn't that bad. Better in some ways. You can always use a ICS-style
launcher such as Nova or Apex.

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spot
cool feature: "Smart stay. The screen refuses to timeout when you're looking
at it, based on face recognition via the front-facing camera. There's nothing
worse than a screen that switches off just as you're starting to make sense of
the content it's showing you, and this feature nips that problem in the bud."

~~~
windsurfer
Does anyone else find this extremely fucking creepy?

~~~
morsch
Creepy? No, why?

I wonder about the battery draw of constantly running the front camera and
doing face recognition, but if that's not an issue I don't see any downside. I
wish my own phone did it.

Even if it uses some power, it might be a net improvement for some people who
would set their screen timeout to very long durations otherwise. I'm sure that
is even more of an issue for a device with such a humongous screen -- it'll
take you twice as long to read an entire screen of information.

~~~
estel
Apparently it doesn't run the camera constantly: it wakes up to take a single
shot immediately before the screen turns off.

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lucian1900
> sorry about the reflections, it's a really bright day

This is offtopic, but I really wish phone makers would put more effort into
making screens that are usable outdoors. Even in gloomy England using my phone
outside is a challenge.

There are few efforts to improve this (Pixel Qi, Mirasol), and they aren't
getting into smartphones.

~~~
MikeW
Under the same conditions, the SIII came out bottom of the outdoor test here:
[http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45801/which-smartphone-
best-...](http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45801/which-smartphone-best-screen-
in-sun)

~~~
jtreminio
Thanks for this link.

I was seriously considering purchasing this phone until I saw the comparison
shots.

My first "Smartphone" was the LG Incite, running Windows 5.5 (I think?). It
was absolutely unusable outdoors, at all. I can't overstate how awful trying
to do anything outdoors with that phone was. Since then I've sworn I would not
purchase another phone that was anywhere as bad in this regard.

Unfortunately it's pretty obvious the SIII is even worse than the SII, which I
had.

I'm really glad now that I've jumped to the iPhone 4S after being a devoted
Android fan for 3 years.

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morsch

      Social tag. When you first take a photo of someone, the phone asks you to name them. From then on, it does all the hard work of recognizing that person again in future snaps, and linking up their social networking profiles so that you can share your photos faster.
    

Is that done on-device, or using a remote service? I wish reviews would make
this distinction. And I wish developers would put back some of the processing
(another example: speech analysis) on to the devices themselves, now that
they've got CPUs that put my netbook's to shame. I guess there's still the
issue of draining your battery by actually tapping into those vast computing
resources.

~~~
runeks
> I wish developers would put back some of the processing (another example:
> speech analysis) on to the devices themselves, now that they've got CPUs
> that put my netbook's to shame. I guess there's still the issue of draining
> your battery by actually tapping into those vast computing resources.

I really think battery capacity is the reason this isn't happening. Battery
capacity is really lagging behind everything else. Seems like every new phone
that comes out is faster than ever, and runs out of power faster than ever.

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sasoon
New mobile phones are getting ridiculously big. Today, iPhone 4S looks like
small phone. This is a cool, actual size comparison of iPhone, Galaxy III and
Note (almost as big as tablet :-)): [http://www.sizeall.com/compare/Apple-
iPhone-4S-Ruler-cm-inch...](http://www.sizeall.com/compare/Apple-
iPhone-4S-Ruler-cm-inch-Samsung-Galaxy-Note-N7000-Samsung-I9300-Galaxy-S-
IIIh/168)

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6ren
It doesn't compare performance or battery life with an iPhone.

But getting both 1.4GHz quad-core performance _and_ long battery life in 135
grams (mainly due to process shrink) is very impressive and bodes well for the
future.

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bobsy
My Android phone is coming up to being 2 years old. I look at this and I see
no reason to upgrade. Yes its more powerful, has a better camera and has a few
neat features like Smart Stay but does this warrant ditching my old phone? No.

With the current state of handset development I would say I only need to
upgrade when the app store stops supporting my phone.

It seems to me like the Smart Phone Market is already hitting a plateau. It's
like the desktop computer market. If you buy a computer today, unless you MUST
play all future games on Ultra graphics it will probably last you just fine
for 5+ years.

~~~
huggyface
_It seems to me like the Smart Phone Market is already hitting a plateau._

Having gone through a number of devices over the years, I couldn't disagree
more. Screens have gotten tremendously better, performance has improved by
leaps and bounds, and connectivity has exploded. Even the touchscreen sensor
on a current phone is a world better than a two year old device (well if we're
speaking about non-iPhone. Apple had a pretty good sensor two years ago).

I'd say your lack of inclination to upgrade says more about you than devices.
Not as an insult, but you just don't rely upon it as a principal device like
many. Mine because essentially a portable computer and I am very excited about
each new iteration.

~~~
rsheridan6
What you say was true a year ago, but the limitations of the human eye won't
allow much improvement over the 300+ ppi screens that have been available for
a year or so. If something is coming along to replace 4G, I haven't heard
about it, and 4G has also been available for a year or so.

I have an HTC Rezound, top tier at the time of it's release about 6 months
ago, and it was significantly improved over the Motorola Atrix it replaced,
which was also top tier at the time of its release about 6 months previously.
I haven't played with newer phones since then, but nothing I have read
indicates that they've improved very much since the last batch of releases in
December, and I don't think the human eye is capable of perceiving much more
pixel density than we already have.

Screens have gotten so much better that there's no point in improving them.
With 300+ PPI screens having been available for a year or so, the only real
improvement possible would be to make them 3D or usable outdoors, which does
not seem to be progressing very quickly.

I have an HTC Rezound, which was a top tier phone when I bought it 6 months
ago, and the display is leaps ahead of my Motorola Atrix, which was a top tier
phone when I bought it last April (something like ~340 PPI compared to ~275
PPI). That kind of improvement will never be possible again, because the human
eye couldn't perceive it. So, yeah, I think we have reached a plateau, though
certainly not 2 years ago.

~~~
huggyface
From two years ago to six months ago is a world of difference, and the draw to
upgrade obviously would be dramatically different.

 _Screens have gotten so much better that there's no point in improving them_

When did pixel density become the only element worth considering? Give me a
screen with the power consumption and long-term viability of super LCD, with
the contrast ratio of SAMOLED and I'd be over the moon. As is, however, each
are serious compromises in one way or the other.

Make battery life better while offering high performance (the the Krait). Give
me better cameras and speakers and sensors. Give me a little projector. Give
me better integration.

There is a tonne of improvements to be had.

------
nicholassmith
Skipping over the majority of it, I'm surprised they compared the camera to an
iPhone 4. Surely at this stage the most apt comparison would be to the 4S? I'm
out of the loop on Android devices but I thought the Galaxy S series was as
top of the line as you could get?

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mrich
Would buy, if I didn't love my S II so much :)

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gbaygon
For a phone in the premium segment they should not be using pentile display.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
An AMOLED RGBG pentile display with x pixels may not be as good as a similar
non-pentile AMOLED display with the same number of logical pixels but it's
better than a non-pentile display of y pixels. (I will graciously let you
choose your own values for x/y, as it may vary by person though I'd suggest 2x
= 3y as a starting point).

Dismissing it out of hand, particularly when basically every camera sensor,
and every encoded video and jpeg does similar things with color, just seems
odd to me. It's an engineering trade-off with lots of in-and-outs for each
specific decision, not an unholy or unclean technology that contaminates
everything it touches.

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chj
I'll be lured by the dropbox deal.

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moron
I was surprised to see they're still using the goofy PenTile display stuff.
The device _is_ the display, you can't skimp on that.

~~~
mrich
Apple advertises their retina display with "you can't see any pixels". The S3
nearly has the same ppi (306 vs. 320), yet people complain about how they are
somehow able to distinguish the subpixels? Something does not add up here.

~~~
ropiku
You're not comparing the same pixels, one is a true pixel out of 3 subpixels,
one is out of 2 subpixels. Thus higher subpixel density. You could see the
colour difference.

