[HTC Desire S] enigmaamit:
The Samsung Galaxy S3 - My Review

As most of you aquainted with me know by now, I've gone ahead and got myself Samsung's flagship for this year - the Galaxy SIII. I've had it for a week now, and I think i'm now in a position to write a small review about my experience with it. I waited a week because of two main reasons - The first is that with any new device, the excitement quotient is high, and most opinions are defensive or biased. The second is that I wanted to post a review of both the Stock setup (4 days) and the Rooted, custom ROM scene (I know my signature says Stock, Rooted...but that ship sailed a long time ago - just haven't updated it yet) - I'm currently very ROOTED and on a custom ROM, the Omega v6, running the Siyah kernel.

So here it goes :

SIZE :

While the phone initially struck me as huge and unergonomic at first look, it grew up very creepily on me within barely a day, and now I feel seriously emasculated when I try to use my Saga. Even the Sensation XE my friend gave me (to root) felt puny in my hands. Don't even get me started on how guilty I feel when I see my trusty DS staring at me with accusing eyes lying unused next to my laptop. I just can't pick up anything smaller anymore! But then I have also contemplated the Galaxy Note previously and that is really REALLY big, so this is where the size maxes out for me. 4.85 inches - no more, no less.

FORM FACTOR & BUILD QUALITY :

For a phone as big as this one, it is surprisingly easy to hold in one hand. It is very curvaceous and fits very comfortably in the hand unlike many phones with large screens (those of you who've had the misfortune of using Sony's new flagship, the Xperia S will know what I'm talking about). Do notice that I say easy to hold and not easy to use with one hand. Trying to get to the top edges of the screen is definitely a juggling task if you decide to use just one hand. Typing on swype is just manageable one-handed, but I prefer two handed tapping any day, since the portrait real estate is quite abundant.

The phone is breathtakingly slim. This is highlighted even more by the relative proportions of the depth when compared to the length and width. The photos don't do any justice to the phone and you need to hold it in person to realize just how satisfying it feels in the hand. I would like to mention the One X here - I still feel that it is a much better looking phone, and the design philosophy is completely different in these two phones, but I'll come to that in detail shortly.

Did I mention it is very light? It's a dream to hold... unlike the aluminium chassis we've come to love on our phones. That is a great material for smaller phones, but a 5inch slab has to be made as lightweight as possible, and Samsung have nailed it just right with this one.

The build quality is very good, no "cheap" feel whatsoever. No creaks, groans, etc etc. The physical home button is a boon, doubles as the power button for screen wake up purposes, so no hunting for volume rocker wake mods. Tte Power button is placed on the side, so you don't have to juggle the phone in one hand to reach the top...your thumb/index finger is already there when you're holding the phone in your right/left hand respectively. One gripe I have is that the Volume rocker is very small, and the Home physical button tactile feedback is poor.

[YOUTUBE]eo93EF7rVIw[/YOUTUBE]

SCREEN :

It's a 4.85inch screen

It's a HD screen

It's an AMOLED pentile screen.

The first two do not need any explanation and are definite no-brainers if you want to buy the phone. The third one warrants some explanation.

Coming from "LCD only" screens in the past, the AMOLED has been a revelation of sorts to me. It is a completely different screen tech and hence behaves very differently from the LCD siblings in many ways.

Colors :

1. Blacks : Blacks are much better on the AMOLED. Black means the pixels do not light up at all, hence massive battery saving. AMOLED suffers from "Black Crush" which means when the greys start getting really dark, they are are seen as just plain black on the screen. How does this affect daily use? No effect unless you're the kind that sits with a GS3 next to a HOX and compares the screens side by side.

2. Whites : No contest, hands down victory to LCD here. Whites are at best bluish or yellowish, or pinkish on AMOLED screens. Period. If you want to buy an AMOLED screen, EVER, you have to deal with it. That said, this is again apparent only when comparing the phone to an LCD screen nearby, and in itself, the whites are quite satisfoactory.

3. Colors : No contest, hands down victory to the AMOLED here. There is just no arguing that the colour depth and contrast on this screen are way better than any LCD available today. This is what has blown me away and has made me fall in love with this screen tech. There is LIFE in the screen, it is so vivid that the images relinquish the phone to a blurry background and jump up at you from the screen. It's like orgasm for the eyes.

Brightness : : To understand perception of brightness, you'll have to read a bit about the screen tech used in displays. In LCD, the pixels mix sub-pixel colors to create a certain tint, which is then made visible by LED back.edge lighting that shines white light through the LCD panel so that the colors can actually be seen. Without the assistive light, LCD screens are nearly impossible to read. AMOLED on the other hand, is made up of self illuminating sub-pixels, which means each pixel is independently capable of making itself visible without need of a separate light source. While a black pixel on an LCD is an actual black color formed by the subpixels, and is still illuminated by the backlight even when it's dark, hence never ever appearing completely black. On AMOLED however, when it need to show black color, the pixel simply turns off! This does two things - Infinite contrast ratio, and huge battery saving on black backgrounds (pixels are off).

All that mumbo jumbo aside, the SLCD2 of the HOX has a much brighter screen than the AMOLED on the SGS3 and consequently horrid battery life too (we'll get there soon). Sunlight visibility is very good on the GS3, no problem in outdoor usage - texting, viewing photos, etc. But if you want to watch an entire movie on a 4.x inch screen sitting under the sun at 1 pm, this phone is not for you.

Sensitivity : The touch is very very good. As would be expected from a phone that you're paying through your nose for. Also, anything metallic can be used as a stylus, as long as it's touching your body. I play Draw Something with pals and regularly use my car keys to sketch images on the screen (What's that? - Of course I have a screen protector!)

Screen conclusion : If you chuck all technical specs charts and graphs aside, and want my opinion in one line - "The screen is awesome." It is the best combination of colour, contrast, luminance, power efficiency and overall satisfaction that is currently available in the market. There is scope for improvement, but when is there not??

SPEED :

VERY, V.E.R.Y. fast.

As in lightning fast.

As in Chuck Norris six-shooter draw fast.

Fraction of a second app launches, excellent multitasking, smooth scrolling, etc etc. The UI is a dream, the browser is very snappy, though it doesn't reflow text like sense browsers do, so lets be fair there. I've always been a hard core gamer, and finally I can say I have a device that can play games like they were designed to be played. N.O.V.A. 3, Asphalt 6, Mass Effect: Infiltrator are testimonials to that.

BATTERY LIFE :

By far the best battery on any smartphone out there. Yes, I'm including the iPhone, the HOX, the X and the Y and even the Z. NOTHING lasts longer. I used to be scared of 3G on the DS. It was like a vampire to my battery blood, but no more. I'm on HSPA all day - never switch it off, have auto-sync always on with the same apps and sync profiles I had on the DS, and with regular use, I still have half the battery remaining at the end of the day. Even gaming does not drain the battery at the rate I expected it would. Very respectable drain. Lasts longer than my friend's 2500mAh GNote battery. Couldn't ask for more.

This in the one single thing I would have bought the phone for, even if every thing else was a little wanting...fortunately nothing is.

CONNECTIVITY :

Everything works. Have yet to try out S-Beam/ other NFC thingies.

NATIVE APPS :

Gallery : Extremely user friendly, very fast and smooth.

Video Player : Supports an astounding range of video formats. The video gallery is animated, with all video thumbnails actually looping though the entire video - looks very cool.

Pop-up Play : Meh...

S-Voice : Meh... (disabled it without using even once). Nothing near what Siri is. (I still hate Apple though - just to be clear on that)

Motion sensitive actions : Direct call, tap to top, Palm to mute, flip to mute, shake to refresh - Meh... But there are a few that I use regularly now : Touch and rotate to launch camera from lock screen, Palm swipe for screenshot (excellent)

Smart-Stay : Good idea in theory, but dodgy in practice. Basically it uses the front camera every 15-30 secs to take a photo of your mug and decides if your eyes are open and keeps the screen awake if they are. To work, the camera needs enough light to take a photo where the eyes can be seen. Always works outdoors and in bright light, and almost never works in low light. I don't think it will ever work in those conditions until they add an infrared sensor.

FM Radio : Excellent, crystal clear sound, and natively supported FM Radio recording on Stock, non-rooted ROMs!

USB OTG Support: Natively available, this is the coolest trick I have shown my colleagues. Once you use this, you will always miss it.

GPS :

Best in class. 3-5 second locks. Getting good locks (10m accuracy) even indoors. Apparently the boost is because of enhanced GLONASS support.

CAMERA :

Very good. Not a DSLR.

Video recording is very smooth at 1080p - continuous autofocus works very well as long as you don't move the camera very vigorously. No stuttering and focus-seeking issues that plague the HOX. Flash is very powerful. Other bells and whistles like zero shutter delay etc, which I think we can attribute the the Google engineers behind ICS development. If I had to nit-pick, I'd say low light photos without flash are grainy, but that's about it. More than satisfied with the camera.

1.9 MP front camera - very crisp video on Gtalk chats. Native video calling (carrier charged) also available on phone (missed that on the DS)

Noteworthy mention : The auto face tag feature is very neat. Works as advertised. Google search please.

TOUCHWIZ :

All of you that know me are well aware of my fetish for the HTC Sense UX. When i went for the SIII, I wans't sure I'd be able to live without it. It is still much more premium looking and pleasant to look at than any UX has ever been, and that includes TouchWiz. But a couple of days of using it without any functional handicap, I've now begun to like it. I would still give an arm and a leg for Sense 4 on the GSIII, but what I'm trying to say is that the UX cannot justify the entire device, as I've learnt from the HOXgate debacle.

Sense UX

Do I miss it? Yes.

Is it a problem? No.

Almost everything that Sense did is now available on Touchwiz, including contact auto linking, scrolling widgets, etc. Actually the resizeable widgets are much much better than Sense on the new TouchWiz. Will post screenshots if people are interested. The one thing I do miss is the Dialer on Sense... Nothing comes close to that one.

DEVELOPMENT :

Far, far better support than HTC. Factory unlocked phone (S-On is an alien concept), no hboot nightmares, friendly warranty policy (my brother-in-law got a phone replacement on a Stock ROOTED ROM), ODIN!!, easily restorable to stock without having to be a rocket scientist. Source codes and kernel sources released by Samsung sometimes even before the device is launched, same happened with the LTE SGSIII. Some very talented kernel developers and rapidly emerging alternate non-stock based ROMs.

CONCLUSION :

If you can afford it, Buy it. Period.

Congratulations to those of you who've managed to read the lengthiest post I have ever typed. You don't have an attention deficit disorder. Those of you that felt that this was a waste of bandwidth, my sincere apologies (@shrome99, very very sorry). I took the time (considerable) to write this up because I see a lot of you hunting for new phones, and have many questions... hope this answers at least some of them, at least as far as the SGS# is concerned.

You guys have given me a lot over the past year and I sorely miss you now. So maybe this is my selfish way of luring you over to the SGS3 so we can hang out a little longer.:o

Happy hunting!:D