[Galaxy S III General] kenkimg:
Verizon Fascinate to S3

Hey, former Samsung Fascinate user here (one of the old Galaxy S variants). Received Verizon Galaxy S3 (SCH-i500) last Monday, but held off until they arrived in the Verizon stores today for a quick hands-on before opening the box at home. Having been told on the phone my local store finally got them, dashed over (with my Fascinate) to take a look.

Want the good or bad news first? Will start off with the good (there's more good than bad):

As advertised, the unit looks actually elegant and was silky smooth in operation, great display responsiveness, really a joy to navigate thru. Going from 3G to 4G LTE was a miracle in itself-- made surfing the web actually useful on one of these things. Has to be at least 10 times as fast, maybe 15x more than the Fascinate's 3G, challenges even my 25/25 Fios internet at home in smoothness and quickness. Sharpness-wise, since the Fascinate has 800x400 resolution, the 1280x800 on the S3 was considerably sharper, but not quite as sharp as i thought it might be. My glasses are tweaked for reading really tiny print, so was probably knocking on the "visible pixels" level of viewing. Again, overall pretty good. The Fascinate had Gingerbread, so ICS was a nice stepup. Bought a $3 USB OTG cable on the internet, and was pleased to find out it works! But don't expect your S3 to power a small external portable hard drive--it needs its own source (at least mine did). Even a 3TB drive works just fine with its own power source. Flash drives also worked fine with no additional power. The cam seems really good too (big step-up in sharpness, realism and performance on both still shots and video--silky smooth functionality). Battery with heavy use held up quite well-20 or so percent used over 2 or so hours. Oh yeah, the back panel that some have complained is flimsy and thin--works fine for me, and would much rather have it if it allows easy access to memory and battery inside the unit. It's very similar to the Fascinate's, which held up just fine over almost 2 years, and that was after opening numerous times. On a drop test the back might detach (haven't done it yet), but it's the screen that counts. After daughter drop-smashed her iPhone screen recently, and me dropping the Fascinate at least twice (once on concrete), will let you guess who made out better (it wasn't her).

So the bad part: the brightness is indeed slightly weak. Comparing side by side with the Fascinate, both at FULL brightness, just no if's and's or but's about it, the Fascinate is brighter. Not by much, but it is noticeable. Was then worried is the S3 going to be a washout in direct sunlight...answer--actually not. Surprisingly, it still comes through, but the squint factor might be just a tad more with the S3. The brightness limitation really appears to be hardware-related, designed-in, in other words imho no rooting or new ROM nor future update is going to make it any brighter. Don't get me wrong--the screen looks lovely, but especially indoors. Using the video- movie test, the colors were good, but possibly lacking a certain punch that the Fascinate had (this is indoor-viewing; when outdoors bright sunlight neither is really very enjoyable, imho).

Alas, nothing's perfect. But could certainly do alot worse than the S3 (especially iPhone--how so many Verizon customers were willing to pay megabucks to get an iPhone--3G and all, never ceases to amaze...). Being in the "act now to grandfather unlimited data" situation, was really pushed into this upgrade. But glad i did, especially for its velvety smoothness, top notch camera and the speedy internet--so cool to have a fast connection in many on-the-go places.