[Galaxy S III General] birdfoot:
Feels kinda like passing a judgement about Diablo 3 based on Diablo 2. The former didn't occur as a worthy successor to the avid fans of the latter; I personally felt so too. But without comparing to its predecessor, Diablo 3 is a very polished game in its own right (without going into the topic of RMAH). And S3 is a very capable phone in its own right and surely does better than S2. My only gripe is that its Touchwiz (and some of the core apps) feels like taking a step back even from that of S2 and Note in certain ways.

S2 is no doubt a very good phone in its era and still is, I think that's a great thing. Most of my friends, however, had battery issues with it and went back to iphone 4. My S3 is way more responsive than me mate's S2 (the only one left with it) and I have alot more customizations done with launchers, etc; so in general, I do think it is an improvement over its predecessor although perhaps not by much. But don't forget this: Not all S3 owners were previously S2 users. I was a HTC Desire user and S3 did manage to convince me to give Samsung phones a go while S2 had failed to do so. Maybe I don't read into specs as much as the gurus do, but alot of consumers don't either.

Android phones are probably the ones that need better specs to do well. Just compare Android and WP7 of roughly equivalent specs, WP7 is alot more responsive. Specs are not the be-all-end-all factor, ultimately it's how the device performs in actual usage out-of-the-box (not everyone wants to root Android, throw in a custom rom and fine tune to perfection). Even my HTC Desire beats the crap out of Galaxy S (this was an absurdly sluggish phone if you don't apply the patch that wasn't even supplied by Samsung) in everyday use. But of cos, with Android, it's all down to what matters most to the user. I'm jumping on Samsung's boat because screen size and multimedia matters alot to me now (whereas I actually dislike the brand itself); but I admit Samsung has done significantly to improve its products and I don't perceive S3 as a cheap looking device.

Anyway, I think S3 does sell for itself. You're just not their main target audience that's all. Just like Diablo 3 is for me. They are probably just trying to take advantage of their current reputation with S2 and Note to get more customers on board rather than a significant upgrade from an old user; I think it's a good idea. And S3 itself is indeed one of the more impressive phones I've come across. I could have gone for HTC One X but S3 has its appeal, especially all Samsung phones are ultimately better multimedia devices. I think it's imperative for Android to be attractive to both tech-savvy and tech-unsavvy users if it were to be more widespread. There's no coincidence the former will be naturally attracted, and I think Samsung is on the right track to win the latter. Super high end specs is useless in the hands of an average consumer if one cannot perceive that is performing well enough to justify its specs (take LG O2X for instance).

I think Apple needs to take your advice instead, unless they just wanna be sustained by their elite fan club. Market share is still important in the long run.