THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 thread

jimmynokia

Well here it is
The Galaxy S III weights 133g and is 8.6mm thick. Its powered by 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor and 1GB of RAM, 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED affair, sporting a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, 8-megapixel back camera, and a 1.9-megapixel front facer. It’s TouchWiz on top of Android 4.0 with some new gesture functions.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/03/galaxy-s-iii-microscope-hd-super-amoled/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/03/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-preview-hands-on/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/03/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-software-hands-on/



Will you buy?

PogMoThoin

There is already a thread, may be best get the mods to rename it
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056565885

subway

Will I buy?
Don't think so. Oh well.

Sony have some nice phones coming out, don't they??

ED E

subway wrote: »

Will I buy?
Don't think so. Oh well.

Sony have some nice phones coming out, don't they??

Rumored yeah.




This vs the XS, it has quad and AMOLED(same res) and the XS has a better camera. But touchwiz is muck, so I'll stick with my S thanks :P

evolutionqy7

Reminds me of a ZTE Tania

Ill have to spare judgement till I get some hands on. Still cant understand the reasons why every manufacturer except Apple and Nokia are moving towards gigantic phones. Make smaller phones with same size screens please. Not bigger phones with bigger screens

Im getting a bit pissed of having to go for a lower end model just for the sake of keeping the size down.

PrzemoF

What's the story with the wireless charging? I can't find any useful info...

Jarren

I was expecting 12-megapixel back camera tbh.

Aodan83

PrzemoF wrote: »

What's the story with the wireless charging? I can't find any useful info...

WHY IS THIS NOT GETTING MORE ATTENTION!!!!
Seriously though, this really seems like a pretty cool feature, but it's like everyone is ignoring it. Engadget practically glossed over it.

partyatmygaff

Aodan83 wrote: »

WHY IS THIS NOT GETTING MORE ATTENTION!!!!
Seriously though, this really seems like a pretty cool feature, but it's like everyone is ignoring it. Engadget practically glossed over it.

Inductive charging was available on the €70 Palm Pre and €99 HP Touchpad that HP sold in the firesale last year. It's a nice feature but it's pretty slow. In any case, I doubt Samsung will include the wireless charger with the phone.

Professey Chin

Aodan83 wrote: »

WHY IS THIS NOT GETTING MORE ATTENTION!!!!
Seriously though, this really seems like a pretty cool feature, but it's like everyone is ignoring it. Engadget practically glossed over it.

Cause its not that big a deal and has been around for a long time. No standards for it (so can go outdated as soon as the phone is), slow and requires additional accessories

Atomic Pineapple

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

Reminds me of a ZTE Tania

Ill have to spare judgement till I get some hands on. Still cant understand the reasons why every manufacturer except Apple and Nokia are moving towards gigantic phones. Make smaller phones with same size screens please. Not bigger phones with bigger screens

Im getting a bit pissed of having to go for a lower end model just for the sake of keeping the size down.

It's seems to be what people want, I'm guessing the iPhone 5 will be bigger, the 4s screen is too small. But I'm off the same opinion I'd like a high end device that isn't massive.

osnola ibax

Is there any video for the phone yet?

Justin10

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Inductive charging was available on the €70 Palm Pre and €99 HP Touchpad that HP sold in the firesale last year. It's a nice feature but it's pretty slow. In any case, I doubt Samsung will include the wireless charger with the phone.

It seemed to me from the presentation, that the wireless charger would be included, I highly doubt it though.

Paparazzo

Aodan83 wrote: »

WHY IS THIS NOT GETTING MORE ATTENTION!!!!
Seriously though, this really seems like a pretty cool feature, but it's like everyone is ignoring it. Engadget practically glossed over it.

It's not that big a deal. My toothbrush uses it and it's an old model.

mik_da_man

I'd love a wireless charger for it.

I have one for my HP Pre3 and touchpad, I think it's brilliant and I dont find the Pre3 charger slow at all and it makes a great desktop holder also

evolutionqy7

draffodx wrote: »

It's seems to be what people want, I'm guessing the iPhone 5 will be bigger, the 4s screen is too small. But I'm off the same opinion I'd like a high end device that isn't massive.

High end users might, average folks still look at the likes of Galaxy S2 as a huge phone. I know the likes of the One X or HTC Titan are like a couple of mm taller and wider, that's what I was saying to myself when I was buying it. After pro longed use it gets annoying to hold it, its generally not comfortable to hold it, you can manage to use it with one hand but its not the most comfortable thing now.

Id probably would have got the 4S over my Titan if the 4S had a larger screen. Having a smaller screen isn't an issue, but having a bigger screen is nice for multimedia and games.

Aodan83

Paparazzo wrote: »

It's not that big a deal. My toothbrush uses it and it's an old model.

Touché.
Carphone Warehouse are giving away a 10" Galaxy Tab with the first thousand pre-orders, and everyone who pre-orders gets a free 32gb SD card. Not sure if that's just UK or ireland as well though. Engadget

RoverZT

Jarren wrote: »

I was expecting 12-megapixel back camera tbh.

Me too and a 2ghz Quad.

What's the GPU?

Jarren

Mali-400MP

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s_iii_flexes_muscles_on_benchmarks-news-4201.php

jeromeof

draffodx wrote: »

It's seems to be what people want, I'm guessing the iPhone 5 will be bigger, the 4s screen is too small. But I'm off the same opinion I'd like a high end device that isn't massive.

It's not even that people necessarily want a bigger screen, but a bigger body allows the phone to have a much larger battery. So, I believe these high end phones have to have a large screen, Quad core processors, LTE (in America) wastes the battery very fast. So, this trend is going to continue and I am sure Apple will follow as they will have the same problem as Samsung, HTC etc.

evolutionqy7

jeromeof wrote: »

It's not even that people necessarily want a bigger screen, but a bigger body allows the phone to have a much larger battery. So, I believe these high end phones have to have a large screen, Quad core processors, LTE (in America) wastes the battery very fast. So, this trend is going to continue and I am sure Apple will follow as they will have the same problem as Samsung, HTC etc.

Ah now that's crap really about the size. Motorola Razor Maxx has a huge battery in quite a small package. I couldn't give to flies about quad core, just give me a qHD or a HD screen and a battery size of the one in the Razor Maxx and ill be the happiest smartphone owner ever.

subway

Aodan83 wrote: »

Touché.
Carphone Warehouse are giving away a 10" Galaxy Tab with the first thousand pre-orders, and everyone who pre-orders gets a free 32gb SD card. Not sure if that's just UK or ireland as well though. Engadget

Is that real? And is it as good as it sounds?
Nothing at the link

Four of a kind

Aodan83 wrote: »

Touché.
Carphone Warehouse are giving away a 10" Galaxy Tab with the first thousand pre-orders, and everyone who pre-orders gets a free 32gb SD card. Not sure if that's just UK or ireland as well though. Engadget

??? Is this for real?

Captain Flaps

8MP camera is great news IMO. Higher MP in a camera is just going to lead to grainy, awful photos. An upgraded 8MP snapper is the best choice they could have made, I'd rather see a more capable sensor at that res than a muck higher resolution one.

I'm pretty much sold on this, I've been waiting to upgrade my HTC Legend and was waiting to see whether this or the OneX appealed more. Upgradable storage (and battery to a lesser extent) is a killer feature in my eyes, the looks and build of the OneX are just so much better though. Pity, but I'll most likely be getting a White s3.

ED E

Captain Flaps wrote: »

8MP camera is great news IMO. Higher MP in a camera is just going to lead to grainy, awful photos. An upgraded 8MP snapper is the best choice they could have made, I'd rather see a more capable sensor at that res than a muck higher resolution one.

I'm pretty much sold on this, I've been waiting to upgrade my HTC Legend and was waiting to see whether this or the OneX appealed more. Upgradable storage (and battery to a lesser extent) is a killer feature in my eyes, the looks and build of the OneX are just so much better though. Pity, but I'll most likely be getting a White s3.

You're a bit off there. See the Nokia 808 for one. Also, the lovely sensor thats in the S.

Captain Flaps

ED E wrote: »

You're a bit off there. See the Nokia 808 for one. Also, the lovely sensor thats in the S.

The 808 doesn't take 41MP shots, its a 5MP camera with a great combo digital/optical zoom. It's also specifically designed around the camera sensor, everything else is secondary, so it's not really a fair comparison. I'd take a slim phone with a competent 8MP running the latest Android over a massive Symbian Nokia any day. The more pixels you cram into a small sensor, the worse overall the image will look. There's more to a good camera than pixels.

Meesared

Captain Flaps wrote: »

The 808 doesn't take 41MP shots, its a 5MP camera with a great combo digital/optical zoom. It's also specifically designed around the camera sensor, everything else is secondary, so it's not really a fair comparison. I'd take a slim phone with a competent 8MP running the latest Android over a massive Symbian Nokia any day. The more pixels you cram into a small sensor, the worse overall the image will look. There's more to a good camera than pixels.

Not actually correct, it is a 41 MP sensor, and can output full resolution shots and the sensor is 5 times larger than most phone camera sensors. Aside from that I do agree with you, it is a ridicilous thing.

ED E

Captain Flaps wrote: »

The more pixels you cram into a small sensor, the worse overall the image will look. There's more to a good camera than pixels.

THIS is the point. Everything else being the same, this is true, but that'll never be the case. You've gotta asses each individually. It could be 5MP and awesome compared to a 12MP(My C902 had a great sensor for its gen) but the opposite can also be true.

It could be argued that the glass in front is of more significance too.


Oh, and the 808 can shoot 39MP photos if you so choose.

absolutegroove

Originally Posted by Aodan83 View Post Touché.

Carphone Warehouse are giving away a 10" Galaxy Tab with the first thousand pre-orders, and everyone who pre-orders gets a free 32gb SD card. Not sure if that's just UK or ireland as well though. Engadget

Four of a kind wrote: »

??? Is this for real?

It is in the UK.

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/news/coming-soon/samsung-s3

Captain Flaps

ED E wrote: »

THIS is the point. Everything else being the same, this is true, but that'll never be the case. You've gotta asses each individually. It could be 5MP and awesome compared to a 12MP(My C902 had a great sensor for its gen) but the opposite can also be true.

It could be argued that the glass in front is of more significance too.


Oh, and the 808 can shoot 39MP photos if you so choose.

I stand corrected

(http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/02/27/Nokia-808-PureView-with-41MP-sensor)

Statistician

When I first bought a mobile phone, the battery would last days.

I'm not going to bother buying another phone until the battery life lasts longer. I'm not bothered by any other features.

PrzemoF

Jarren wrote: »

I was expecting 12-megapixel back camera tbh.

Makes absolutely no sense with the optics is in any mobile phone. It's just a number without any connection with the resolution of produced photo. By "resolution" I mean the real amount of details, not just x by y pixels.
Decent DSLRs have 10-20 Mpixel sensors.

ED E

I like that I have 12 purely because it allows for 9 at 16:9, and does so well. But any higher is totally pointless.

DRose1

Statistician wrote: »

When I first bought a mobile phone, the battery would last days.

I'm not going to bother buying another phone until the battery life lasts longer. I'm not bothered by any other features.

Contradicting yourself there... The reason there is poor battery life on modern phones is because of the use of the new 'features' that are integrated.

If you don't use these features at all and maintain a relatively low brightness level on the screen, you will get days out of most phones...

WolfForager

Pretty damning article on The Verge.

So what did we get? The Siri-imitating S Voice, a quad-core SoC that's already been announced for the Meizu MX, a suite of camera enhancements that rips off HTC's ImageSense wholesale, and a signature animated lock screen that emulates interaction with water, something that's been a live wallpaper option on Android phones since 2010. Oh, and industrial design and build quality that you'll find on any anonymous South Korean MP3 player — Samsung seems to have tried trickling its design language up, never a good idea.

And while hardware is growing less and less important, industrial design still counts, and the Galaxy S III falls below the necessary threshold of a high-quality device (Pentile displays belong in the past)

At best, Samsung matched the HTC One X. At worst, it indulged in a two-month delay of an MWC-worthy device, stoked a frenzy of anticipation that was unjustified by the eventual product, and jeopardized the still fragile growth of its brand reputation among smartphone enthusiasts.

EDIT: Linky http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/4/2998464/how-samsung-broke-my-heart

evolutionqy7

DRose1 wrote: »

Statistician wrote: »

When I first bought a mobile phone, the battery would last days.

I'm not going to bother buying another phone until the battery life lasts longer. I'm not bothered by any other features.

Contradicting yourself there... The reason there is poor battery life on modern phones is because of the use of the new 'features' that are integrated.

If you don't use these features at all and maintain a relatively low brightness level on the screen, you will get days out of most phones...

Agree try not using any of the smartphone features and you will get days from your smartphone. My mum isn't a heavy user and she can max out 4 days from her experia play. She only uses it for calls and texts and an occasional app. She always have all the connectivity options off unless necessary.

The fact that you use it for more stuff makes the battery go down quicker. Still doesn't excuse the fact that they can't fit a huge battery in there. What's the point of ultra thin phone. Id say a lot of smartphone users would be delighted to have a guaranteed 2-4 days of heavy usage

Craigels

Carphone warehouse have a sign up page

http://www.carphonewarehouse.ie/aspx/ComingSoon.aspx

ChopShop

WolfForager wrote: »

Pretty damning article on The Verge.

Is that comment about Pentile displays fair, valid?


Whilst i'm not as impressed by the S3 as i might have hoped, it smacks a little of a hatchet job.

evolutionqy7

wernstrom! wrote: »

Is that comment about Pentile displays fair, valid?


Whilst i'm not as impressed by the S3 as i might have hoped, it smacks a little of a hatchet job.

While you probably wont notice it as much on its own, id say you could see tid bits if you had two displays side by side. PenTile Matrix is usually seen the best on lower resolution displays 480*800 usually.

partyatmygaff

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

While you probably wont notice it as much on its own, id say you could see tid bits if you had two displays side by side. PenTile Matrix is usually seen the best on lower resolution displays 480*800 usually.

It also makes anything small on the screen appear a bit fuzzy. It's not easily noticed on large text or large graphics but it's pretty noticeable on small fonts and graphics. Case in point... leap view on the HTC Desire made the homescreens almost impossible to read.

Simi

The pentile display is the only thing that bothers me. I'd really hoped they'd have cracked non-pentile super amoled screens by now.

It seems like a small thing, but in reality it means the screen on the now year old SGS 2 is arguably as good or better than the SGS 3.

I understand the techincal difficulties, my simple maths tell me that if they kept the pixel size from the SGS 2 the SGS 3 would need a 10"+ screen in order to fit 921,600 pixels.

They've gone for a HD pentile screen, because it sounds better than than a qHD non-pentile screen. If they'd gone for the latter my next phone would be a no-brainer. Now I have to think about it :-/

The Sparrow

Does anyone think that the S2 will drop in price in much when the S3 goes on sale? Wouldn't mind picking one up if they do.

Chet T16

I'm confused, was the original desire penile?

Edit: spot the SwiftKey auto correct

partyatmygaff

Chet T16 wrote: »

I'm confused, was the original desire penile?

Edit: spot the SwiftKey auto correct

The Nexus One, the HTC Desire and the original Galaxy S were among the first popular phones to come with a pentile matrix screen.

ChopShop

Simi wrote: »

The pentile display is the only thing that bothers me. I'd really hoped they'd have cracked non-pentile super amoled screens by now.

I'd say there's a good chance they already have, but are holding it over for the next Nexus.

god's toy

Simi wrote: »

The pentile display is the only thing that bothers me. I'd really hoped they'd have cracked non-pentile super amoled screens by now.

It seems like a small thing, but in reality it means the screen on the now year old SGS 2 is arguably as good or better than the SGS 3.

I understand the techincal difficulties, my simple maths tell me that if they kept the pixel size from the SGS 2 the SGS 3 would need a 10"+ screen in order to fit 921,600 pixels.

They've gone for a HD pentile screen, because it sounds better than than a qHD non-pentile screen. If they'd gone for the latter my next phone would be a no-brainer. Now I have to think about it :-/

I think it will still look really good regardless of pentile or not.
Here is a vid talking about the Nexus (pentile) S2 and Iphone, I think it will help some people understand a little better what we can expect.

Professey Chin

Good article showing its design choices that could have been influenced by apples lawsuit
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/05/04/the-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-the-first-smartphone-designed-entirely-by-lawyers/

Zonda999

The Great Chinholio wrote: »

Good article showing its design choices that could have been influenced by apples lawsuit
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/05/04/the-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-the-first-smartphone-designed-entirely-by-lawyers/

Was half thinking that myself

Downright disappointing if that is true. Surely Samsung wouldnt give in that easily..

No two ways about it, the S3 is the least aesthetically pleasing of the three Galaxxy S phones thus far. To think Apple are to blame for that makes me dislike that company even more.

evolutionqy7

Zonda999 wrote: »

The Great Chinholio wrote: »

Good article showing its design choices that could have been influenced by apples lawsuit
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/05/04/the-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-the-first-smartphone-designed-entirely-by-lawyers/

Was half thinking that myself

Downright disappointing if that is true. Surely Samsung wouldnt give in that easily..

No two ways about it, the S3 is the least aesthetically pleasing of the three Galaxxy S phones thus far. To think Apple are to blame for that makes me dislike that company even more.

As trend continues I think Sammy still got probably the best hardware and yet the phone doesn't look half as good as the competition. Personally I think it looks cheap, as said it reminds me of a cheap ZTE Tania.

Looking from benchmark performance s3 doesn't seem to leap as far as as it did with the s2 against competition.

But benchmarks are half of the story, so are the pics, I've seen a couple of phones that didn't look great on a pic or a video and then in real life it was actually quite pleasing. So I'll pass on judgement when I get some hands on

Craigels

What's the best option for someone who isn't out of contract buy sim free and sell my galaxy s ii ?

evolutionqy7

Craigels wrote: »

What's the best option for someone who isn't out of contract buy sim free and sell my galaxy s ii ?

Stick with your S2? Unless you need to have the latest and greatest I dont see the point of getting it once it comes, the s2 is still a great phone.