Overview

Best in its Class but Very Expensive

Perhaps the strongest competitor yet to the market-dominating iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy SIII was released to incredible hype – but does it live up to expectations?

Design and Build Quality of Samsung Galaxy SIII

With its 4.8” screen, the Galaxy SIII is a large phone (70.6 x 136.6, and weighing in at 133 grams) but surprisingly narrow in depth, making it more pocket-friendly than you might think. Available in Marble White or Pebble Blue, the brushed polycarbonate body of the phone is smooth, glossy (some may consider it plasticky) and feels solid enough to withstand a few blows. The screen is undoubtedly a highlight: the high-res Super AMOLED display renders colors and blacks beautifully, offering rich, deep visuals that look lush and truly life-like. Its button design is smart: a lock button down the right side, and on the front the curved Home, Back and Menu buttons make for quick navigation.

User Interface and Comfort to Use

Running a newer Android version, 4.0.3 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) with Samsung’s TouchWiz software on top, the SIII offers a completely revamped user interface which feels cleaner, faster and smoother than any previous model. It boasts some smart features, such as face-recognition unlocking and apps that can be opened from the lock screen. Powered by a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor, the UI feels uncluttered and clean. The overhauled widgets offer greater customization than before. At the bottom of the display, the enlarged dock now holds 5 items. Interactions and transitions are slick, particularly due to the clever eye-tracking software, Smart Stay, which tracks your eyes when you are looking at the screen. The notifications menu gives access to crucial controls such as Wi-Fi. Overall, the UI is enjoyable and intuitive to use, with a task manager that gives users greater control over running processes.

Samsung Galaxy SIII Telephony and Phonebook

Samsung SIII shares a great deal with the SII in managing contacts: contacts are stored in a list, each with a small image from Facebook, Google, or your own hard-drive. Twitter has gone, which may anger users. The system is functional but not exciting, and getting all contact images and information into one place is time-consuming. However, making phone calls is one of the phone’s best functions: call quality is excellent, with the menu option of boosting volume. Quality of signal is good and calls rarely drop. Smart dialing finds contacts fast, and voice calls are integrated with video, which is clear and smooth, making use of the front camera.

Messaging and Emails

Samsung SIII also excels for messaging, whether SMS, email or IM. Android’s messaging system is familiar, and now integrated with ChatON—the Samsung equivalent of BBM and Google+. The keyboard is well designed but doesn’t offer the best level of accuracy, particularly because the predictive text function is slow. Messages can be dictated using voice-recognition or handwriting – both novel but unrefined. Email can be sent via the standard client or GoogleMail. The client is simple and relatively clear, but compares poorly to iPhone/HTC equivalents. GoogleMail is far more powerful, with smart tags and navigation.

Samsung Galaxy SIII Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

If you love media, the Galaxy SIII is a superb choice. In addition to a maximum internal memory of 64GB, owners can use a micro-SD card to boost total storage as high as 128GB – hours and hours of media. The Video Player is excellent: simple, easy to use, broad file support and stunning playback on its large screen. And with the ‘Pop Up Play’ app, you can playback a miniature video on the top of other apps (web, email, etc.).

Music Player and FM Radio

The phone’s music player is sound with plenty of functions like smart playlists to keep users happy. You can control music from the notifications pane, a handy feature. The sound quality is outstanding, and can be tweaked with equalizer settings to optimize playback. A virtual surround sound feature is interesting, and adds real depth to higher quality tracks. In addition, the phone’s FM radio offers strong scanning, picking up stations other phones would not find, and gives the option to record live stations.

Samsung Galaxy SIII Still Camera and Image Quality

Surprisingly, the phone’s camera is the same 8MP as the SII, but this doesn’t diminish its ability to take great photos. New features include Burst Mode (roughly 10 photos per second), HDR, Panorama, Face Zoom, Buddy Photo Share and others. The camera app is slick and full of tools, including pre-shoot effects like color filters. The shutter speed is excellent and the quality of images is among the best of any smartphone available.

Video Camera and Video Quality

This phone is a great movie-making tool. It defaults to 1920x1080 recording, and this produces crisp, vivid video in most light conditions. Customizable effects are limited, but owners can use the effective anti-shake function to smooth the footage.

Samsung Galaxy SIII Connectivity Options

The phone is fully stocked with options, including advanced location sensors and NFC. Wi-Fi Direct transfers media at astounding speeds, and the signal strength is consistently good. The SIII's DLNA enables the device to access tracks on local devices, and media can be streamed from a PC to a television using the phone. Connectivity to PCs is good, but relies on software that can’t compete with the likes of iTunes; users may choose to drag-and-drop instead. Using an MHL cable, the phone will also connect to a larger viewing screen. And of course, Bluetooth 4.0 is present, which the potential to create personal area networks for local streaming.

Organiser and Other Utility Tools

Samsung SIII comes packaged with 2 years’ online storage with the DropBox app, providing users with a generous 50GB in cloud storage for files and media. The phone’s S Suite Apps are a mixed bunch: S Memo is a useful note-taking app; S Planner gives more than the usual Calendar app; and S Suggest will help you to find apps you might consider useful. The S Beam app is a clever transfer tool that uses a local Wi-Fi connection to send large files to other mobile users.

Samsung Galaxy SIII Web Browser and Applications

The SIII delivers a smooth, powerful internet experience with clear, deep rendering and lots of great features such as incognito browsing; and users can also install the Chrome browser. The phone arrives preloaded with numerous apps, including the Games Hub, Video Hub and S Suggest, both content portals. S Voice is Samsung’s answer to Apple’s Siri, a voice-controlled assistant that can carry out tasks such as phone calls, alarms, playing music or snapping a picture. Unfortunately, this app doesn’t match up to Siri: it fails to recognize voices, processes sounds slowly, and its transcriptions are full of errors. Users can also access thousands of apps from the Google Play store.

Google Maps and GPS

The phone’s GPS is enhanced by GLONASS, a Russian equivalent; and together these make the Maps app superbly effective, locating your location on a map in seconds. The HD screen shows incredible detail, including locations, transit lines and live traffic updates.

Distinctive Features of Samsung Galaxy SIII

The SIII is a phone made for gaming, handling almost anything with ease. Game visuals are impressive, even when rendering a demanding title such as Dead Space, and the phone’s controls are enjoyable and intuitive to use.

Value for money and Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy SIII is undeniably expensive, but as the top model in the diverse range of Android devices, it is the ideal buy for users who want slick software, beautiful HD visuals and a powerful processor that will handle almost anything with ease. This phone doesn’t come cheap – but for those willing to spend, the phone earns its price tag because of its superior hardware and extraordinary capability.