SANSUNG GALAXY III S
Last week, we reviewed Malcom Gladwell’s book: Blink. This week, we’re going a little more high-tech.
After being available for mass consumption for a few months, the Social Firm has had a chance to experiment with the Samsung Galaxy III S. Our super-scientific analysis of the technology (playing with it for 3 hours straight) allowed us to reach our conclusion: this phone is awesome!
While it is not a perfect device, it comes pretty close to that coveted title.
Here’s a little bit about the design of the phone. Samsung specifically aims to outfit the Galaxy with a more natural feel. The outer chassis is polycarbonate, and features rounded corners and a nice glossy finish. The front panel is protected by an all-over continuous sheet of Gorilla Glass 2, which offers great protection from car keys in the pocket.
The casing dimensions are 136.6mm long x 70.6mm wide x 8.6mm thick. This size allows for a large 4.8 inch screen. The GSIII design minimizes bulk by cutting back on the hardware frill. This allows for the whole phone to weigh in at 135 grams (4.7 ounces). The screen itself is an AMOLED display, boasting a healthy pixel density capable of achieving good contrast and deep-blacks. The phone comes in marble white or pebble blue.
And now for what you’ve been waiting for: performance.
The Samsung Galaxy III S is one of the only smart phones available with a Quad-core processor. A 1.4 GHz, shrunken transistor Exynos Quad processor, to be exact. The benefit of shrunken transistors is more performance power out of a smaller unit. This is a feature that only a handful of large companies like Samsung can afford to fund.
The battery comes in at a hefty 2,100mAH, and it’s totally interchangeable – a rare sight in the smart phone market.
Now here’s something to make all amateur photographers salivate. The camera achieves raw speed thanks to the Exynos processor. The GSIII cam shoots at 6-FPS with full 8-megapixel resolution, all with the absence of shutter lag. Wow! The camera features a press-and-hold method of shooting, which allows for adjustment of exposure, focus and framing before releasing the shutter to capture. The image quality is very clear and crisp, and compression levels are adjustable (normal, fine or superfine). With a multitude of shooting options (including panorama) the phone could potentially replace your standard camera.
Last but not least, the GSIII is 4G capable, allowing for insanely fast data transmission. We’re talking Flash Gordon fast.
In addition to a sleek design and powerful performance, the GSIII has some features that are sure to tip the scales.
First and foremost, this phone has a Micro SD slot. You can upgrade your phone’s memory (a maximum of 128GB – standard 64GB model plus a 64GB SD card) which gives it hard drive-esque storage capabilities. That’s a lot of videos and songs!
The desktop is very customizable with lots of menus and setting screens. You can also download widgets to your pages. GSIII owners are allotted 50G of free Dropbox storage. So we retract the previous maximum measurement of 128GB. It’s more like 178GB.
The phone also has some convenient swipe options (swipe contacts left to text and right to call), a smart stay option that recognizes your eyes and will prevent the screen from dimming when you’re viewing, and a Social tag function that recognizes faces after you tag them once.
One function stood out above the rest to us. The GSIII has multiple-desktop linking capabilities through Google. Simply download Google Chrome onto your phone, and connect to your desktop or laptop through your Gmail account. The implications for Google+ compatibility are enormous! Simply amazing.
That is quite a lot to love.
But it’s not all great in the Galaxy. There are a couple of complaints that seem pretty unanimous across the inter-verse.
The smart stay option doesn’t always work too well, dimming out at inappropriate times. The S Voice option, which is Samsung’s version of Siri is unresponsive and doesn’t recognize commands too well. Not a good thing for a personal assistant. The phone’s blue tooth wireless interface function (S Beam) is only compatible with other GSIII handsets. The lightweight plastic design won’t appeal to everyone, with some describing it as “feeling a little cheap”.
Well, it’s impossible to please everyone. But here at The Social Firm, the Galaxy III S certainly pleases us. It’s sleek design, powerful performance, and myriad of features makes it nearly the perfect phone. Now if we could only put the phone down and get some work done…
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