• WEEKLY PODCAST
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • OPINION
  • CONTACT

Ritchie's Room

Technology, Gadgets and Product Reviews

You are here: Home / Uncategorized / Samsung Galaxy S3 First Look at a VERY Smart Phone

Samsung Galaxy S3 First Look at a VERY Smart Phone

June 1, 2012 By Ritchie

Bona fide events built around around product launches are few and far between these days, but there was no doubt that the local launch of the Samsung Galaxy S3 in Sydney yesterday was aimed to make as much of an impact as possible, delivering on the promise of a new mobile device that could set new standards in mobile functionality.

After receiving our Samsung Galaxy S3 and spending a few hours with it in the studio today, there was no doubt that the bar has been raised and it will be hard to leap frog this device any time soon. We’ve put together a few segments so you can see what our impressions are, particularly if you’re looking at upgrading your smartphone any time soon.

The phone is light, powerful and rates extremely high on the usability factor. The hardware is light but also robust with no give or flex in the tooling. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is powered by a quad core 1.4GHz processor, and it shows. All app opening/closing/switching, browser performance and camera use all ran without a hitch.

The 1280 x 720op 4.8″ screen is lovely to behold. The Super HD AMOLED display provides wonderful contrast levels, where black levels really do feel like black, and colours appear quite vivid and deep. Watching content locally or streamed on the Samsung Galaxy S3 was issue free.

The Touchwiz UI has had a raft of tweaks for the Samsung Galaxy S3, and all focused on user experience. The phone can be set to respond to motions to mute the phone, make phone calls from a message window, and brightness can be maintained if your eyes are placed on the screen. You can take a video playing in the video player and have it hover over the rest of the screen while you do any other activity on the phone.

The S Voice is also a decent competitor against Siri. In our test, the Samsung Galaxy S3 was able to hold its own and go the extra mile (pardon the pun) when it came to street directions to a destination – in Australia this service is still blocked by Apple.

Google does a pretty good job at integrating social media accounts in their smartphone OS, and the Samsung Galaxy S3 continues that trend, with local photos having the ability to be tagged with social profiles.

The built-in 8MP camera on the Samsung Galaxy S3 continues to demonstrate why so many people eschew a dedicated compact camera these days – smartphones are able to compete in casual shooting environments with ease. This camera has a few cool features, like burst mode, best photo which chooses the optimised pic from a burst 8 shots, 1080p video recording, 720p from camera recording, and snapshot function while recording video. These are features you find on decent dedicated camera setups, so it’s no wonder there is a shift in user behaviour.

Aside from the hardware prowess, operating system refinements and overall performance, the Samsung Galaxy S3 continues to include some content offers as well. The Music Hub, which has been around for some time now, is available for a free trial, as is a subscription to  Quickflix for movies and TV shows. Navigon GPS software is also preloaded.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is a remarkable phone. Considering the advancements made since the GS2, and the side-by-side comparison with the rather dimunitive-looking iPhone 4S, this phone ticks most of the boxes a smartphone user would want – with the exception of 4G connectivity and the still-fragmented Android ecosystem.

Samsung Galaxy S3

Should the new Samsung Galaxy S3 be crowned the new king of smartphones?

However, Samsung are betting on screen size and a controlled, specialised interface along with content and social/usability propositions to make their pitch – and it looks like millions of interested punters around the world are buying it. To be honest, so are we.

This page will be filled with a few videos over the weekend focusing on some different areas of the Samsung Galaxy S3. We hope you enjoy them, and let us know if you have any questions by leaving a comment below.

Until next time!

Related

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 4.8-inch, Android 4.0, Android4.0, exynos, galaxy s iii, galaxy S III hands-on, galaxy s iii preview, galaxy s3, galaxy+s+3, galaxy+siii, GalaxySIiiPreview, Google, HD Super AMOLED, Ice Cream Sandwich, impressions, S III, Samsung, samsung galaxy s iii, Samsung Galaxy S3, samsung+galaxy+siii, SIII, Touchwiz

Comments

  1. Level380 says

    June 2, 2012 at 5:55 pm

    How are you finding the battery life???? Does that large screen and quad core CPU eat the battery?

    • Bilal Khan says

      August 1, 2012 at 10:25 am

      samsung has said that the quad core cpu on the gs3 uses less power then the dual core cpu on the gs2. the screen is also using amoled which uses less power then lcd displays. From what other reviews have said this phone last as long as a tablet – around 10 hours.

      • Ritchie says

        August 12, 2012 at 9:20 pm

        I’ve had the phone on all day without having to charge, so yes it looks like a long battery life – some other reports have it as the best smartphone battery so far. Still, I always have a charger in the car and at the office just in case.

  2. Benjie says

    June 3, 2012 at 1:19 am

    Which do you prefer? HTC One X or S3?

  3. jill says

    September 3, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    i have just bought th S3 an i cant figure out how to work navigon can u help me plz

  4. shiavak says

    September 6, 2012 at 9:42 am

    Can I have turn by turn gps stand alone software ie to be use without internet connection stand alone. Can you please give name of software available in market asap. Thanks s.s.c.

Trackbacks

  1. Galaxy S3 (S Voice) vs iPhone 4S (Siri) | All iStuff says:
    June 15, 2012 at 11:37 pm

    […] [via] Tags: siri video by ialpha Tweet […]

  2. Comparatif de Siri de Apple et de S Voice de Samsung | Android-France says:
    June 28, 2012 at 5:44 pm

    […] confrères de Ritchie’s Room on profité de la récente présentation de iOS6 pour effectuer un comparatif entre la toute […]

Subscribe

Become part of the family.

Become part of the family.

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.

Welcome to the club!

Powered by Rapidology

On Radio

Click on the 2UE button above and on the next page click on the "Listen Live" button to hear Ritchie live in the studio online from anywhere in the world. The show is on at 5pm Sunday afternoons Australian Eastern Standard Time. So remember to convert for your local area.

Live Periscope Broadcasts

@ritchiesroom

Facebook

Facebook

YouTube Channel

My Most Viewed Videos Ever

Google Nexus 7 vs Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7.0 Tablet
Google Nexus 7 vs Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7.0 Tablet
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime
SAMSUNG Galaxy Tab 7.7 - The Best 7 Inch Android Tablet
Gear VR Oculus Cinema - How to Watch Your Own Movies
Tethering Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 to your Android phone
Watching Movies On The Samsung Gear VR
new iPad (iPad 3) A5X CPU vs ASUS Transformer Prime Tegra 3 CPU
New SAMSUNG Laptops the Series 5 Ultrabooks
By PoseLab
Show more videos»

Google +

Other Articles You Might Like

Live on 2UE Talking Lifestyle, November 27th 2016

I was live in studio on 2UE earlier today with my cohost Clinton Maynard, and this week we chatted … [Read More...]

Live on 2UE Talking Lifestyle, 20th November, 2016

I was live in studio on 2UE earlier today with my cohost Clinton Maynard, and this week we chatted … [Read More...]

Live on 2UE Talking Lifestyle, 13th November 2016

I was live in studio on 2UE earlier today with my cohost Clinton Maynard, and this week we chatted … [Read More...]

Live on 2UE Talking Lifestyle, 6th November 2016

I was live in studio in Melbourne in the lovely 3AW studios earlier today while my cohost Clinton … [Read More...]

Recent Posts

  • Live on 2GB, August 20th
  • Live on 2GB, August 12th
  • Live on 2GB, July 22nd
  • Live on 2GB, July 16th
  • Live on 2GB, July 2nd

Archives

About Us

Ritchie's Room is a dedicated gadgets, technology and consumer electronics blog. Week in and week out we will keep you up to date with the latest product … [Read More]

Tags

Acer Android Android Honeycomb Android Tablets Apple Asus Transformer Asus Transformer Prime Australia Bing Lee Consumer Electronics Show Facebook Galaxy Tab 7.7 Google HDMI Intel Intel Corporation IPad iPad 2 iPhone MicroSD Microsoft Music PC Hardware Personal computer product reviews Radio Samsung Samsung Galaxy Tab Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 Smartphone Smartphones Software tablet Tablet computer Tablet PC Tablets talkback listeners Technology Ultrabook Ultrabooks Universal Serial Bus Video virtual reality wearables YouTube

Search Bar

Copyright © 2023 · Ritchies Room the Place for Technology, Gadgets and Product Reviews