Friday, May 4, 2012

Samsung Galaxy S III: Upping the ante



Finally putting to rest all the speculations, Samsung officially announces the debut of its latest flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S III.

The good: everything's an upgrade. The bad: the design somehow fails to impress.

The most conspicuous upgrade in the device is perhaps the larger screen (compared to the S II). At 4.8", the S III's display is approximately half an inch bigger than its predecessor's. The screen employs a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with Gorilla Glass, displaying a resolution of 720x1280. The crisp and top of the line display conspicuously—delectably if you may—shows the latest Android OS (Ice Cream Sandwich, v4.0.4) that comes with the S III straight out of the box.

The S III is a quad core device running Samsung's own 1.4GHz Cortex A9 processor operating on an Exynos 4212 Quad chipset. It also features 1 GB of RAM and is available in three internal storage capacity variants: 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB. The device has a microSD slot that works with cards of up to 64 GB.

Being a high end device, full and advanced connectivity is only expected of the S III. It features Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, A-GPS support, GLONASS, wi-fi a/b/g/n, USB-on-the-go, NFC support, and TV out. It also includes an accelerometer, gyroscope, RGB sensor, proximity sensor, barometer, and compass.

The camera experience with the new Galaxy device also feels like a total upgrade with the 8 MP lens capable of shooting quality stills while recording HD videos. This feature comes in handy in instances when a user cannot immediately decide whether to take a video or to have a photo of a very important event or situation. Additionally, the camera boasts of a "zero shutter lag" upgrade. This means that users no longer have to deal with the compulsory pause when taking pictures. A new photo may be taken within less than a second after pressing the shutter key. The camera may also be voice activated.

Internet connection is moreover an amazing experience with the S III considering its generous screen size and the  Adobe Flash support.

Other features worth noting in the S III are the built-in document editor, integrated Dropbox interface, voice commands, active noise cancellation, SNS integration, DivX support, Swype input, and the smart eye tracking feature for keeping the screen lit and active while a user's eye is still aimed at the screen.

To support all the aforementioned features, the Galaxy S III comes with a 2100 mAh Li-Ion battery.

As earlier mentioned, the design leaves more to be desired. It does not look as elegant as expected or hoped for. Many may agree that Sony's Xperia line looks sleeker and classier. It does not help that the device is also available in only blue or white colors.

Expected availability of the device for the international market is May of 2012.



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