The Samsung Galaxy S III enables you to share smarter, interact more intelligently and experience great performance, all powered by Verizon 4G LTE.
669 of 693 people found the following review helpful.
By LoveMyToys
The GS3's sexy specs and glossy good looks (particularly in pebble blue) won me over. On launch day, I swapped my beloved Droid Razr Maxx, for the Samsung Galaxy S3. Prior to the Maxx, I briefly owned the Verizon version of the GNexus (which I can't recommend at all). Before I get into the nitty gritty details, with pro's, con's and comparisons, at the time of this review, this is the phone you have been waiting for--the phone that will make you use that upgrade or cause you to sign a ridiculous contract with Verizon. After spending ten minutes with the phone, it's an obvious step up from the Razr Maxx and Galaxy Nexus--the former top tier Android phones on Big Red's network.
Performance
As much as I loved my Razr Maxx (and its marathon 2-3 solid days of battery life), after spending a few minutes with the GS3, the performance leap is very noticeable. The GS3 is silky smooth, with no lagginess at all. Apps (particulary heavy duty games like GTA III) launch quickly and are game play is flawless. I know many of you aren't going to play anything requiring more than the occasional fling of a few angry birds, but the GS3's ability to handle hardcore mobile games with ease is a sure fire indicator that it will be able to run 99.9% of the apps out there in two years. In other words, this phone has the chops to allow you to make it through your contract without starting a countdown for your next upgrade.
How about some real world examples of the GS3's muscle? The Qualcomm S4 chipset with an industry leading 2gb of Ram can cut through 1080p video files like butter. Surprisingly, it was able to play back a 23.5 mbps AVCHD file using hardware decoding decoding!!! I was even able to take play back the file with the video in screen, while I did a couple of google searches. The average $400 laptop would have a tough time handling that!
The GS3 doesn't disappoint on the audio side either. While HTC touts its Beats Audio Technology, that's nothing more than a brand name equilizer setting with limited value-- unless you're spend $100 or more on a beats headphones (which I personally don't care for). Sammy, on the other hand, dropped in two Wolfson digital to analog converters, which allows the GS3 to pump out lossless high bit rate music with ease. Using a pair of Etyotic HF3 IEM earphones, sound quality was crisp and clean for music playback. Even lossy tracks streaming from Amazon Cloud sounded surprisingly full. Much more so than on some other phones that I own. In terms of music playback, the GS3 is every bit the equal of the iPhone and possibly a little better.
The Screen
The's GS3's 4.8", 720p HD screen is a stunner! The Super AMOLED panel provides rich color saturation and outstanding contrast. The panel used to make the screen is beautifully fabricated. the slight curve in the design makes it a pleasure to touch. Text is crisp and I see no issue with this most recent implementation of pentile technology. The fuzziness from Galaxy S, GNexus and Fascinate is a thing of the past. Watching videos on the GS3 is a treat.
All is, however, not perfect with the GSIII's screen. While the contrast and color saturation are strong points for the phone, if you like natural color tones, the pumped up saturation levels may bother you. Personally, I would dial back the saturation level if I could. The GS2 had a settings menu that allowed users to tweak brightness, contrast, tint and saturation. For reasons I don't understand, that great feature was some how left behind on this next gen phone, which is a real pity.
While saturation is a matter of taste, the real issue with the screen though is brightness. Even cranked to 100%, the screen still seems to be a few nits behind the curve. I would love to be able to dial up to 120%. The maximum brightness is noticeably less bright than the screen on the Maxx (which Motorola sourced from Sammy). So, what gives? I am not sure, but my best guess is that in the interest of improving battery life and to compensate for the size of the screen (and the power that size screen will suck), Sammy choose to put a software restriction that limits the ability of users to pump of the brightness. Hopefully, this can be cured by a future firmware update.
While the brightness could use a boost, this deficiency is further amplified by awful auto-brightness implementation. When auto-brightness is turned on, the phone makes sudden and drastic adjustments in brightness even in a consistently well lit setting. It seems as if the software has only 3 settings for brightness when it is set to auto--low, medium and high (which isn't that high to begin with). The phone will drop from high to low suddenly, leaving the screen unreadably dark. Until Sammy sends out a software update to fix the problem, I have disabled the auto-brightness feature.
Software Implementation
The user interface for this latest version of touchwiz is really very nice. This phone provides IOS levels of comfort and ease of use to a smartphone beginner, but allows the flexibility for the nerds among us to customize the phone to suit our needs and tastes. CNET and Phonedog have done excellent video reviews on the GS3's user interface and software features and highly recommend that you check them out (Amazon won't allow links to outside sites--so you'll have to google them).
I do have a few software gripes, one of which could effect some peoples' buying decision.
One of the purported advantages of the GS3 over its top competitors from the HTC One line of phones is the fact that the GS3's has a micro SD card slot and accepts up to 64gb cards. Android allows must apps to be saved and launched from the micro SD cards. This feature allows low and mid-range phones to be made with limited internal storage because users can add their own cards.
Sammy, however, wants power users to buy the bigger capacity 32gig phones for an extra $50. To force us to buy the step up model, Samsung disable the ability to move apps from internal storage to the micro SD card. I am not sure of the size of the app partition in the phone, but I hope Sammy didn't put too big of a restriction on internal storage or that could be a problem for some people down the road. I understand why Sammy made the decision to disable the feature, but it seems like a low rent Apple type move to me and, in fairness, the HTC One series doesn't accept SD cards at all (nor does the iPhone nor any of the current Windows 7 phones).
Another small grip I have is with Sammy's decision not to incorporate ICS's native ability to generate folders for apps simply by stacking one app icon on top of another . Motorola incorporated this feature on its ICS update to the Razr and its native to ICS, so why force us to have to press the menu screen, select create folder and than drag and drop files? Sammy, that's very Gingerbread of you. A good UI should use the strengths of the underlying Software and improve on the weakness--not just make changes for change sake. This is one of the few areas that the Sammy's "Nature" UI seems to fall short.
Battery Life
Gripes are over for now. :) The batter life on the GS3 seems pretty decent. I have had it off the charge since 8:30 this morning (its 4:47 in the afternoon), and have been using the phone heavily. Screen on time is about 2:53 minutes. I have done some light web surfing--shopped on ebay and amazon for a new case for the sammy. Send about 7 or 8 emails, 10-12 tests, and made about 80 minutes worth of phone calls. Brightness is set to around 90% (auto-brightness is disabled). I even played about 15 to 20 minutes of GTA III, and watch about 20 minutes of an episode of Lost on Netflix. It's now 6:33 in the evening and the battery says it has 62% remaining. I would still be in the mid-80's with the Razr Maxx and the GNexus would have been dead or on the charger a few hours ago.
I would say the battery is good--but it's not close to being in the same league as the Maxx. The fact that it is removable, however, does give it a major step up on phones like the HTC One (X-S), Razr (original), Sony ION, iPhone 4S and Atrix HD. In short, if you are on Verizon and don't need the Maxx's 2 full days worth of battery life, I would take the GS3 over the Razr Maxx (which is exactly what I did). [Edited 7/26/12: I ordered two 2300mah batteries with a wall charge from QCell for $24.00 from Amazon last week. These batteries performed as good or better than OEM and had NFC capabilities. This eliminated the need for a huge internal battery from my perspective, although there are plenty of 3500 and 4000mah extended batteries available for the GS3. If you're coming from anything other than a flip phone or Razr Maxx, you will have no complaints about the battery life--This phone absolutely smokes my old iPhone 4 in terms of battery life).
Camera
The camera on the GS3 gets top marks. It uses an updated version of the same 8MP Sony sensor used in the iPhone 4S. Unlike the iPhone 4S, there are options galore for tweaking your photos. I am really impressed with the sharpness of the phones, even in low light. Depending on the shot, the camera on the GS3 (and photo quality in general) is very comparable to photo quality on the Nokia 808 and iPhone 4S.
Video quality is on par with the photo quality. It shoots very smooth 1080p video. Color is good and the video quality is genuine HD quality for most shots. If you shooting a sporting events or other fast paced action, or are pan quickly, there is a lag in time while the camera gets in focus. In fairness, I see the same issue with the iPhone 4S and I have yet to see a smart phone camera do better. Audio quality on the camera is also quite good.
Call Quality and Reception
I have had no problems with reception at all. Unlike its GNexus stable mate, the qualcomm radio and baseband in the GS3 are top notch. I have excellent signal strength on Verizon's network. Call quality is excellent. The people I called say that I sound like I am on a landline--and they sound just as clear to me. Data on Verizon's 4G LTE Network is also strong. I located in the metro NY area. I am consistently pulling 18-24mbps download and 9-16mbps upload speeds on the 4G Network. I get strong reception for Wifi and great broadcasting for Bluetooth as well.
Comparison with Competitors
I have no regrets about trading up from the GNexus to the Razr Maxx and even less regret about trading from the Maxx to the GS3. Despite its plastic build, I think the phone does have a premium feel. It's not as solid as the Maxx, but no one is going to look at the pebble blue version of the GS3 and thinks--that thing looks cheap. It's comfortable to hold. The HTC One X has a sharper, brighter screen and a camera that is on par with the GSC's. The lack of a user removable battery is a big knock against the HTC One series however. The iPhone is, well, an iPhone. As nice as the iPhone 4S may be (and it's great phone), the lack of LTE capability and low data rates on Verizon's CDMA network make it a no go for me. On ATT, however, it can take advantage of higher HSPA+ speeds, but ATT's network has been having some issues lately. For that reason alone, if I am married to ATT or am on Sprint or Verizon for that matter, I am taking the GS3 over the iPhone 4S.
Conclusion
This is a solid phone and a no brainer if you are on the market for a phone right now and have $200.00 in your pocket!
319 of 334 people found the following review helpful.
By Brian Rokosz
The Galaxy S3 is a 4.0.3 Android ICS 4.8" AMOLEDHD 720P 2GB of RAM, fantastic device.
The features that this phone has are top-tier and the gesture control (while gimmicky) is amazing to show off. I still keep a few on cuz they come in handy.
The device is also incredible fast and smooth, and the screen looks perfect. People will complain that this has a PENTILE display, which has faced very harsh reviews on other phones. However, due to the high-resolution display there are so many pixels that the PENTILE isn't noticable at all. The saturation really adds to the screen and all of the colors pop.
The quickness is partially due to Verizon, but mostly due to the S4 processor inside which easily matches the Tegra 3 quad-cores in tablets and the overseas version of this.
In short, for $200 you won't find a better new phone. The speaker on the back is loud, the sound is amazing, the earbuds this comes with are actually pretty good, the processing power is phenominal.
The camera is also the best of any phone...its essentially the iPhone 4S's camera...that Samsung made for them...but tweaked to use more cool features.
The front camera works wonders with Tango and Google+...both are Android/Google's "Facetime" and work with anyone who has a front camera, unlike Facetime, which requires iOS.
The people that give this bad reviews are doing so because of Verizon, not the phone itself. Verizon decided to opt out of a lot of things that people want this phone for:
1) NFC...payments made from the phone using a wireless connection and Google Wallet were switched off by Verizon, all other carriers get it.
2)Dropbox--a cloud based storage system. This phone comes with 50GB of dropbox storage...25GB on some carriers...Verizon's gets 0GB
3) The bootloader, or way to easily root the device and get inside to tweak everything about the device (what Android is best for since everything is open-source) is locked and encrypted...Verizon is the only one refusing to open it.
4) Onboard apps--Verizon's tools like backup wifi detection always turn on and interupt what I'm doing. In fact, when opening ANY app that uses data, Verizon has a big pop up that asks you to switch to an open wifi so you dont use their data...you have to physically hit the "no" every single time...even when checking facebook you have to. It's sooooo anoying.
So, in summary, this is the best phone in the world..no exaggeration, literally every website, including Mac World, rave about this thing...Verizon's version is severly limited due to them being greedy, arrogant, idiotic...well you get the idea.
If you want easy access to rooting, hacking(which is encouraged with android devices...google even awards people who hack into their devices to improve them...the Nexus Q being the best example...during the reveal of the device at their conference they stopped to tell people how hackable it is)...get the Galaxy Nexus or wait until this Christmas when the next "Nexus" device is out. I for one, was just tired of waiting and this device was the last one to allow me my unlimited data.
If you have questions, ask.
168 of 175 people found the following review helpful.
By davepy
This review is for the 16GB, blue, Verizon S3.
Owned for 5 days now, and played with extensively, but not rooted. Fantastic upgrade from my Droid X. ICS by itself is worth the price ($199 from the Verizon store, btw). Hardware seems plenty fast despite not being the quad-core international version. 16 GB + a 32 GB sd card gives me plenty of storage. 4G LTE is blazing fast at my location (SE Michigan).
ICS, how do I love thee? I can finally disable all the annoying Verizon (& Samsung) apps w/o rooting (though you need to root to fully uninstall them). Multitasking is greatly improved (hint: long-press home button). Stock apps are almost good enough to stick with (almost, not quite, esp. the keyboard & browser).
Hardware: good camera, fantastic AMOLED display. Pentile, sure, but can you really tell? HD movies look gorgeous and play smoothly. Decent speaker for speakerphone or listening to podcasts. The display is huge, and the phone is a bit big for one-handed operations, but it's also thin and fits in your pocket no problem. Oh, and it looks great. Almost a shame to put a case on it.
Good battery life. I've been going a full day on a single charge with medium-heavy usage with plenty to spare. Not watching movies or anything that requires the LCD to be on for hours at a time, obviously, but for most usage, you should be fine just plugging in at night.
Nitpicks:
Major 1 - Power button placement on the right, usb port on the bottom. I'm hitting the volume keys on the left far too often when turning on/off the phone. Could just be personal preference as I'm used to the power button on top on the Droid. USB port on the bottom makes no sense though.
Major 2 - No MSC (Mass Storage Control) transfer, only MTP & PTP. Less flexibility in dragging & dropping files, folders, etc from your computer. Sure, there are ways around this, but is annoying nonetheless.
Minor - so, yeah, big display, and if you have small-ish hands, 1-handed operations are risky, esp w/the somewhat slippery case. I don't actually mind the plastic construction--doesn't feel "cheap" to me at all--but I'll likely get a TPU case for the grippiness.
Shortcuts on your lockscreen is a great feature! Except you have to unlock the phone to actually launch the apps. Why can't I turn on my flashlight or calculator (zero security risks) on demand? No ring/vibrate switch from the lockscreen either.
Anyway, plenty of software nits that can be fixed by downloading replacement apps or rooting. Really, it's the MSC & power button that might tempt me to leave the G3 a 4* review, but honestly, I just love the phone to death right now, which is kind of the bottom line. Maybe it was just the degree of upgrade after 2 years, but whatever, it's a fantastic phone that I was happy to pay full price for at launch, instead of waiting a month or two for it to get discounted.
Edit: 7/26. Added thoughts after 2 weeks of ownership and experience of travel (air & driving) with the phone (because this review wasn't long enough!).
Pro - GPS locks very quickly. The DX took a long time to lock onto GPS signals, but the SG3 is almost instantaneous when outdoors (or inside of a car that is outdoors). Gets rid of a huge peeve for my previous phone.
Pro - Camera features work well, esp. the Best Shot mode. Took some very nice pictures at a wedding.
Con - Button placement redux (see Major 1 above). I asked many people to take pictures for me, and they invariably hit the volume button by accident which operates the digital zoom. Very natural to place your left thumb there in landscape mode. A good case might alleviate this.
Semi-con - This is 100% on me, but don't get too cocky about the Gorilla Glass 2. I managed to scratch it a tiny bit in the 2 weeks thinking it was invincible, and it's not. Keys & coins may be fine, but rough kitchen surfaces are not (granite, sandstone, etc). Buy a protector.
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