Samsung Galaxy S3 review by trustedreviews

Key Features

• 4.8in, 720 x 1280 pixel display
• Quad Core 1.4GHz CPU
• 8MP camera with 1080p video
• Android 4.0 ICS with TouchWiz

Samsung Galaxy S3 - Design and Build

You might say the Samsung Galaxy S3 has been highly anticipated. You also might say Jesus seemed like quite a nice guy…

Few products in recent years that haven't had a bitten Apple logo somewhere upon their chassis have garnered as much attention as the Galaxy S3. After the huge success of the Galaxy S2 last year it is this follow up that many people have expected to again be the flag bearer for Android smartphones. But has Samsung succeeded? Is the Samsung Galaxy S3 the pinnacle of Android smartphones, and indeed of mobile phones in general? Lets find out.

Head straight to Page 2 for our thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy S3 screen and controls or our video comparison of the Galaxy S3 and iPhone 4S.

Video review


Design and Build
Anyone that's already familiar with the Galaxy S3 will know that its design and build has courted controversy. Eschewing the premium feeling materials of the iPhone 4S or HTC One X, it uses a glossy plastic back which, although by no means inherently budget, is a finish more associated with cheaper handsets.



Does this inherently make the Galaxy S3 undesirable? No, it certainly doesn't go that far, and indeed if you put it next to the Sony Xperia S it really shows just how much Sony slipped up on that design, but next to an iPhone 4S or HTC One X it's these two that give off the stronger whiff of craftsmanship.



In practical terms there are a few genuine issues with the Galaxy S3 too. While the polycarbonate that the backplate is made from is very tough due to its pliability, it isn't very scratch resistant, even with an extra scratch resistant coating – either the matt finish of the HTC One X of Xperia S, or glass of the iPhone 4S will standup to more punishment. That said, it should be relatively inexpensive to get replacement backs for the Galaxy, and given that it's a single piece that covers the entire back, this will make your phone scratch-free in one fell swoop. Samsung's choice of finishes – glossy white (Marble White) and faux brushed metallic blue (Pebble Blue) should wear any scratches reasonably well too. That said, we're actually not fans of the styling of the blue version – pretend metal just isn't cool – so it's just as well that's the version that has been delayed.



The other potential issue is that, particularly given the Galaxy S3 is such a large and thin phone, it could succumb to being crushed. Particularly we're thinking in comparison to the iPhone 4S and its tough steel sides here. That phone can take a right squishing and squashing when in a pocket whereas we'd be a little more wary of cracking this phone's screen if crouching down or some such. Then again, this could equally apply to many other large, thin phones and we pretty sure you'd have to be rather unlucky for it to actually happen.

Moving on from the Galaxy's plastic back, we have few complaints about the rest of the design. The smooth glass face with its tapered edges, the tidy silver plastic trim (real metal would again have been nice) and single central home button combine to create a tidy, premium look and feel. The screen is also Gorilla Glass 2 so should be very scratch and impact resistant.



What's more, pop that battery cover off and you're into a whole world of goodness. There's a microSD slot that'll take cards up to 64GB in size, potentially giving you up to 128GB of storage if you opt for the Galaxy S3 version with 64GB of built in memory.

You also get a large 2100mAh battery that not only can you swap out for a spare when needed but also in the future you may be able to get extended batteries that last longer on a single charge. While the SIM slot on the Galaxy may look large, like the iPhone 4S and HTC One X, it actually houses a microSIM. One counterpoint to the removable battery is that you can't hot-swap SIM cards like on the One X.

Also under here, to the left of the battery, are two gold contacts. These are for a future wireless charging backplate and dock that will allow you to simply place your Galaxy S3 on its dock to charge it, without the need to plug in. Its technology we first saw built into a phone on the Palm Pre, and we think it's downright brilliant. Sadly the required accessories are delayed for several months.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 available on Sprint today for $199, next week on Verizon

By Michael Rougeau  

 

Samsung's Galaxy S3 is the flagship for Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Samsung's Galaxy S3 is finally available today on Sprint, after many delays and much confusion on every carrier.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 comes in 16GB and 32GB sizes, for $199 and $249 respectively with a contract from Sprint.
Verizon's Galaxy S3 is expected to release next week, and its pricing for the Android smartphone is also expected to be $199/$249.
Samsung initially announced that the Galaxy S3 release would take place on June 21, but on that very day the company announced that "manufacturing issues" would delay its release on all carriers.
That didn't stop them from fulfilling many pre-orders on time, but Sprint customers looking to walk into a store and try the phone out before they buy it have been out of luck until now.

Which carrier is best for Samsung Galaxy S3?

Sprint has the advantage of releasing the Samsung Galaxy S3 first, but which carrier's version of the phone is best? Read TechRadar's reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S3 for T-Mobile and AT&T.
The Galaxy S3 is the first Android smartphone to ship with Ice Cream Sandwich, Google's Android 4.0 OS, which has arrived on many phones as an update.
But not every carrier will be taking advantage of the Galaxy S3's 4G LTE capabilities.
Sprint's version will run on 4G LTE, and the carrier's limited LTE network is expected to continue to expand.
Same goes for Verizon and AT&T, though T-Mobile's Samsung Galaxy S3 won't support the fast 4G LTE network.
T-Mobile's version is also more expensive, at $229/$279 after a $50 mail-in rebate.
AT&T's, on the other hand, can be acquired at a discount from Target or Amazon Wireless, at $149 for the 16GB Samsung Galaxy S3.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 comes in white or "pebble blue" on Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile, and an exclusive red version will be released by AT&T in the coming months.

Samsung Galaxy S3 is the Android 4.0 flagship

TechRadar recently pitted the Samsung Galaxy S3 against its biggest competitors, Apple's iPhone 4S and HTC's One X.
The Galaxy S3 sports a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display, Qualcomm S4 processor, 8MP camera, and 2100mAh battery.
The Android 4.0 smartphone also features NFC capabilities, facial recognition to track users' eye movements, and voice controls mimicking the Apple iPhone 4S's Siri.
Samsung expects to sell 10 million Galaxy S3 phones this month, and now that the phone's actually seeing a wide release, that number could be attainable.


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Samsung Galaxy S3 Now Available in Europe

May 04, 2012 by Peter Pachal 17

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In what might be the most inadvertently silly tagline in smartphone history, Samsung says the Galaxy S III is “designed for humans.” No one’s designing phones for cats, so Samsung is obviously being more figurative here, meaning that the user interface and features on the phone better meet what people really want to do.
Until we get a our hands on the thing, we won’t know that for sure, but Samsung detailed many of the features meant to make the Galaxy S III more human-friendly. Several of them have a social component as well, since one of the main things we do with smartphones is make and maintain connections with others.
The phone’s high-performing Exynos 4 Quad processor, six separate sensors, and wireless tech such as near-field communication (NFC) all enable its abilities. But “humans” don’t care about any of that. Do the new features on the Samsung Galaxy S III address the needs and desires of today’s smartphone customers? Let’s take look:

• S Voice: This is Samsung’s Siri clone, letting you control the phone with your voice. It’s unclear what the limits of S Voice are (Siri has been infamously criticized for not working as advertised), but Samsung has chosen to emphasize just a few simple tasks users can peform with voice: unlocking the phone, hitting snooze on an alarm, playing songs, sending texts and scheduling events.
• Smart Stay: Tapping your screen to stop it from timing out before you’re done reading will never happen on the Galaxy S III, according to Samsung. Smart Stay uses the phone’s front-facing camera to monitor your eyes, so it knows when you’re reading, watching video or doing anything where your attention is on the screen but not actively doing anything with it.
• Face Recognition With Auto Tagging: If your cellphone camera can recognize faces, why not let it assign names to them and automatically tag your photos? The Galaxy S III does this, letting you quickly share (via email or picture message) to all the people in the photo with just a couple of taps — assuming their faces are already associated with your contacts. It’s not clear how this would translate to tagging on Facebook, but it seems like a no-brainer.
• S Beam: No need for the cloud if you want to share files on the Galaxy S III. You can transfer files up to 1GB to another person’s phone just by tapping them together. The connection is made via short-range near-field communication (NFC) and the files are delivered over Wi-Fi Direct. The feature is limited, though: Both phones have to be Samsung Galaxy S IIIs.
• Direct Call: This is a simple change, but probably a welcome one for many. If you’re texting someone and decide you want to call them instead, just hold the phone up to your ear. The phone automatically places a call to the person with whom you were just texting.
• AllShare Cast: The link between phones and TVs is getting stronger with features like AllShare Cast. With just a few screen swipes, the phone easily lets you mirror what’s on your device (photos, videos and the web) to the bigger screen. It’s a great idea — and where the world is going — but like S Beam, it has a similar limitation of needing Samsung equipment to work — either a TV or a special dongle.

The Samsung Galaxy S III has many welcome features, following in some areas (like voice control) and leading in others (social tagging). We can’t wait to see the U.S. model, which Samsung says will be able to connect to LTE networks. While the timing of the launch hasn’t been announced, Samsung says it’ll be available this summer.
What do you think of the “human” features of the Samsung Galaxy S III? Is it what you’ve been waiting for in a smartphone, or are you not impressed? Share your thoughts in the comments.


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Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) Review by John V.

 

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Introduction:

Samsung made it blatantly obvious last year that they would not be upstaged by the competition, as they seemingly redesigned the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be thinner than the iPad 2. Well folks, fast forward one year later to the present, and Sammy is back for round two with its successor in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1). Strangely, rather than concocting something bigger and more immense, they’ve decided to go towards the affordability route, as the tablet launches with a specs sheet similar to its predecessor – while boasting a $50 decrease in price to $450 for the base 16GB version. Will this new approach expand its reach?


Design:

By now, we’re all too familiar with Samsung’s strategy of not being upstaged by the competition. However, with this successor model, its design is a wee bit uninspiring and underwhelming. Overall, it exhibits all of the characteristics of being a Samsung made device, as it sports a sturdy all-plastic build – while still regarded as being streamlined at 0.38” thick. No doubt, we applaud its slick and comfortable feel in the hand, but still, its design is not as aggressive when compared to other recent things like the Asus Transformer Prime.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) sports a sturdy all-plastic build

This time around, Samsung has repositioned its speakers onto its left and right edges, which are also raised higher to not interfere with our hands while holding onto it. And of course, there’s a front-facing VGA camera perched above the display ready for all our video chatting needs.

	Speaker on the left edge	Front-facing camera

Looking around its sides, most of its buttons and ports are located on the top side of the tablet – these include the springy power button, volume control, microSD card slot, 3.5mm headset jack, and an IR blaster. With the latter, we’ve been seeing it incorporated with many of Samsung’s recent tablets, and we continue to enjoy seeing the tablet doubling as a universal remote. On the bottom edge, the only thing we find is the proprietary charging/data port and the microphone.

Top side	Right	Bottom	Left
The sides of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1)

In the rear, Samsung has opted to keep the same sized 3.2-megapixel camera, but it’s sadly lacking auto-focus and an LED flash.

Back	Rear camera

Motorola Xoom review

The first Android 3.0 tablet arrives to challenge the iPad 2

By John BrandonMarch 3rd 2011

 

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Page 1 of 10Motorola Xoom: Overview

The Motorola Xoom is the first Android 3.0 tablet to hit the market. That makes it the first Android tablet to ship with an OS that's designed especially for big screens, and that's why it's so exciting.
Every tech gadget must be judged solely on what it provides, its purpose in life, and whether it will help you accomplish tasks and enjoy your media.
With the Motorola Xoom, it's too easy to make constant iPad (and iPad 2) comparisons. Can you purchase movies as easily? Does the screen get as grimy? Does it cost more?

• Read: Android 3.0 review

Yet, the Xoom is the first Android 3.0 tablet, the first really powerful tablet with a dual-core processor, and a sleek, 10.1-inch slate that is easy on the eyes.

You can check out our Android Tablet round-up to see how this slate measures up against three of its rivals below:

There's no question the Xoom is a brilliant tablet, one that is incredibly flexible in terms of media you can put on the device.

With a 5-megapixel front camera and a 2-megapixel rear-facing camera, 32GB of local storage (plus a potential for more SD storage after the next software update), 1GB of RAM, 4G support once the LTE roll-out starts and after a software upgrade, and 10-hours of battery life, the Xoom has the hardware specifications to make you sit up and take notice.

Plus, the new Android 3.0 tablet interface lives and breathes in the open source world.
Frankly, the Motorola Xoom blows the Samsung Galaxy Tab out of the water, and that is saying something. We'll keep our iPad comparisons to a minimum (hey, if you wanted one of those you would have bought one by now, right?) and ratchet down our comparisons to the iPad 2 which ships in the UK on 25 March.
The Xoom is the best Android tablet around and a device that is well worth serious consideration.
However, before we go any further, we need to address pricing - the Motorola Xoom is currently available for pre-order for £499. The 3G version is set to cost £100 more at £599.
The next-best Android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, costs £399.00 without a contract, which is quite a bit lower than the Xoom. And, the Apple iPad 2 will start at £429.00 for the Wi-Fi-only version, so the Xoom is expensive.

Yet, our overall impression testing the device is that it is a notable upgrade from every other Android model, including the Dell Streak series. The heart and soul of this tablet is the new Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) OS, which ran lightning fast in our tests on the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor.
And we mean fast: finger swipes registered quickly and accurately, and the few games available ran smoothly.

Android 3.0 is a brilliant interface for tablets – much more flexible than iOS in that you can drop widgets all over your homescreens, and more responsive and even better suited for reading books and playing games.

The Xoom even touts this fact in the Google Books app: there's a cool page flipping animation.
The Xoom has a decidedly PC-like UI in that you can press a button to see all open apps (unfortunately, you can't selectively close them from here but you can close apps through a memory manager under the settings screen), click the clock to see notifications and access settings, and move objects around the screen easier.

Motorola Xoom Review: The latest tablet computer to hit the market, is fast and well built, but a little bit of a bugger to play with and way too overpriced

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Motorola Xoom review

Love

• Blazing fast
• PC-like functionality
• Sturdy build, good battery

Hate

• Software needs improvement
• Just a handful of tablet apps
• Poor media performance

Update: We now have a Motorola Xoom  2 and Apple iPad 2 video which you can watch (above). 
Since it was first announced at CES, we’ve been eagerly waiting for the Motorola Xoom – the first tablet with Google’s brand new Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) operating system. This is truly the first real competitor to the Apple iPad, and Xoom actually manages to outperform Apple’s tablet in quite a few areas. It has just launched in the US, where T3’s US correspondent Jeppe Christensen has been checking it out.

Motorola Xoom: Screen
The hardware is sturdy and impressive. The Xoom weighs in at 730 grams and is 12.9 millimeters thick –almost identical to the iPad, but the roomy 10.1-inch screen is wider, with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. That gives the Xoom an edge when watching movies and browsing larger websites, but it also makes it feel a tad long and narrow while one is holding it vertically. No doubt, this beast was made for landscape mode, where the Honeycomb software is able to make great use of all that screen real estate.
Sunny weather is a problem though, the screen looks great when inside but there’s just too much glare to use the XOOM comfortably outside in direct sunlight. Turning the screen brightness all the way up helps but it’s nowhere near good enough.
The Xoom has better specs all-around than the current iPad. The processor is faster with two cores, there are four times as much memory, better speakers, and a bigger and higher resolution screen. Currently, it’s equipped with EVDO 3G for use on the Verizon cellular network in the US, but later in the year a free upgrade will be available for the company’s faster 4G network. When it arrives in the UK/Europe, the built-in Broadcom 3G chip will be configured to enable HSDPA performance of up to 10.1 megabits per second.
There is 32GB storage for apps, movies, music and photos. The Xoom actually does have a slot for MicroSD memory cards, but unfortunately, it’s not working right out of the box. Motorola reports it is waiting for a software update from Google to enable support for memory cards in Honeycomb.
Motorola Xoom: Camera and Google Talk
Finally, there’s a 2.0 megapixel front-facing camera for video chat or narcissistic self-portraits and a five-megapixel shooter on the back that also produces 720p video with 30 frames per second. The five meg shooter on the back actually produces decent well-balanced pictures, and 720p video looks pretty decent. although it’s really awkward holding the XOOM when shooting pictures or video for more than a few minutes at a time. The Google Talk app is a joy to use, so instant messaging on the XOOM feels natural when you’re sitting lazily on your couch.
The two-megapixel camera on the front enables you to make video calls, and while not crystal clear HD quality, the quality is good enough, especially over Wi-Fi and a decent broadband connection, with video and audio being mostly fluid and in sync. Tying to make the same call via Verizon’s 3G EVDO network produced a choppy and much less enjoyable experience, hopefully in the UK with HSDPA things will improve.
Motorola Xoom: Android 3.0
So, the Xoom is quite a well-equipped package, but does that really translate into a fast, functional and accessible user experience? In most instances, the answer is a resounding “yes!” Having used quite a few Android phones over the last couple of years, we quickly felt at home in the Honeycomb user interface. You have five home screens for apps and widgets and a permanent navigation and notification bar at the bottom of the screen. In the past, Android has been criticized for being a bit nerdy and complicated, and while Honeycomb does have kind of a cold and digital look (TRON, anyone?), most actions are easy and intuitive.
Composing e-mails, checking your calendar, browsing the Web, using Google Maps, or simply playing with the settings are allsimple tasks, and it’s a joy working with apps built and optimized for the larger screen. The user experience is definitely much closer to that of a PC than that of a smartphone.
Surfing the Web is a breeze thanks to tabbed browsing, the ability to open and render new Web pages in the background, and the sheer speed of the device.This thing is fast, and now it’s actually preferable to look up something or check a link on your tablet than it is on your laptop. We’re a bit bummed to discover there’s no support for Flash straight away, but Adobe is assuring us that their software for Honeycomb will arrive in just a few weeks. We hope that this won’t impact the speed too much.
Most Android apps for phones work fine and fill out the entire screen, but occasionally, you’ll run into apps that won’t work properly or simply crash, and this is something we’d like Google to fix immediately. As of writing this, there are only 16 tablet apps in the Android Market, and this puts the Xoom at a huge disadvantage compared to iPad and Apple’s booming app store that carry more than 60,000 apps for the iPad. The few apps that are in there are generally of a high quality, and we enjoyed checking the latest news with the Pulse News Reader, checking out movie listings and reviews with the Movies app from Flixster, and just killing time with the tablet-optimized version of Angry Birds Seasons.
The built-in keyboard is easy to use and just as good (or bad) as that on Apple’s iPad, so it’s fine for short messages and e-mails and you can actually type pretty fast enabling correction suggestions.
Motorola Xoom: Video and music
The Xoom’s 10.1-inch screen just begs for Hi-Def video, but currently there are no compatible video rental or download services available. Google states this will change soon enough, but right now, you have to make do with converting your DVD or Blu-ray collection. Unfortunately, the built-in movie player is very picky and won’t play even the most popular file formats. Forget about DivX and MKV files, and nothing with DTS or AC3 sound will play either. The “easiest” solution is to fire up a program like Handbrake and convert or re-encode your movies into MP4 files with AAC or MP3 audio.
The lack of support for a variety of movie and audio formats is seriously disappointing, especially considering that a device like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab will play nearly everything you throw at it.
Handling your music collection is easy, and the built-in player looks beautiful with its fancy 3D-effects and album graphics. Unfortunately, Honeycomb has trouble recognizing embedded album artwork, which is a shame. Also, if you stuff the tablet with gigabytes and gigabytes of music, the music player tends to become overwhelmed and then takes quite a while to change between different views. You can’t help but feel that the software needs time to mature.
Motorola Xoom: Battery



Battery life seems to be comparable to that of the iPad, with better or worse performance depending on your usage scenario. We got a whopping 10 hours of heaving Web browsing over 3G before the battery finally ran out of juice. That is, in all respects, pretty impressive. It doesn’t handle video quite as well, but still managed to squeeze out eight hours with brightness at 65 percent and Wi-Fi and 3G turned on. In a mixed-use scenario, you can probably squeeze out between 10-14 hours of use.
The Xoom is an enticing device with a very promising operating system, but we must note that despite the long wait, Honeycomb feels a bit rushed-to-market and somewhat rough around the edges. We love the user-interface, the Web browser, and all the Google-oriented apps, but the poor media handling is seriously disappointing, and we desperately need more tablet-apps in Android Market. We will update this review when we get a UK review sample, so we'll see if this improves.
We could overlook all this were the Xoom priced competitively, but Motorola is asking for a whopping $800 dollars without a contract or $600 with a two-year Verizon contract. In the UK pricing has just been announced at £499, which seems respectable. Considering we’ll see iPad 2.0 in just a few days, with expected availability within a few weeks, and with the Honeycomb running Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and LG Optimus Pad coming soon, we'd suggest waiting before investing.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Details

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