[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] mercado79:
Well guys, here's my recap of tonight's event:

Long story, short. I’m sold. Very glad I pre-ordered.

Positive impressions:

Appearance

The phone feels great in the hand. Yes, it is made of plastic, but it doesn’t feel cheap or creaky. White looked great. Unfortunately, there were no blue versions available at all…and there were dozens of GS3’s in the room. A couple of reps I spoke to said they were planning to buy the blue for themselves. That textured/grain looked great in the demo videos and press materials found throughout the venue. Large phone. Very large screen. But it is extremely comfortable to hold and navigate. I have zero reservations about the size and I do not have large hands either.

Display

Speaking of the screen, it looks beautiful. Especially in the dimly lit room tonight. I didn’t think the colors looked garishly oversaturated. Blacks look as great as we’ve come to expect from Samsung phones. I know that many people have complained about sub-pixels and screen quality, but to my untrained eyes, Super AMOLED HD was stunning.

Button Layout

The fact that the power button is on the right side makes way more sense on these big phones than having it located at the top of the phone (like the HTC One X or Evo). Very easy to activate.

Camera

Burst shot (8 to 20 photos) and best shot worked well. Face tracking was quick too. Taking pictures while recording a video is also a nice plus. Pinch to zoom or use the volume rocker. Front facing camera quality was much improved over my OG Evo and Nexus S.

Software

Using S Beam (Samsung’s customized NFC & Wifi Direct implementation) worked as expected. Files, including videos and photos, transferred surprisingly quickly. Just make sure that the phone is unlocked first. One rep mentioned that this will work with other NFC enabled phones, such as the Galaxy Nexus, but I’m skeptical.

Their demo of screen sharing / collaboration was kind of neat, though they only used an image as an example. Basically, one SGS3 had an image on its screen and a bunch of other phones were set up with access to it. While using the "client" phones, you could write on the "host" phone's image, highlight words, etc. Apparently this will work with other types of files such as Word docs.

Accessories

The accessories they demoed looked great. That includes the media link stuff (picture quality on the displays was surprisingly good) and the cases. As you may have seen elsewhere, Samsung is selling a flip cover case. I may just pick one up. Hard cover over the screen without the bulk. We’ll see.

Negative Impressions:

Button Layout

The two capacitive keys are reversed in my opinion. Back is on the right and menu is on the left.

Software

Siri… I mean S-Voice, got in the way of a couple demos I saw, but I think that was user error more than anything. The rep got stuck on a menu and kept double tapping the menu button instead of hitting back or tapping the home button once.

Call Quality

The rep I asked about HD voice tried to work some marketing mumbo jumbo on me. It went something like this, “The Evo’s HD voice is a gimmick. It’s an unproven technology. Requires network upgrades that aren’t even available. Even the term, HD, is inaccurate. Samsung will be sure to look into it at a later date, but for now, it’s not something to be concerned about.” He asked me what I’d even need something like that for? Have I ever had issues with voice quality on a modern smart phone? To which I responded, “Yes, nearly every windy day when I’m walking outside or if I’m out at a bar and there’s loud music playing.” I told him that was the way HTC and Sprint had demoed HD voice in NYC. At that point he took out a notepad and jotted some of my words down. If HD voice comes out on the SGS4…you’ll know who to thank! ;)

Miscellaneous

Lastly, and unrelated to the phone, prizes were given out at the end of the night based on points you collected from the various reps at different stations (S Beam, Burst shot, NFC “memory” game, etc.) as well as contests. It was kind of a rat race and stopped being fun after I noticed people cheating. I’m sorry, but if you’re a cute girl and just walk around asking reps for points and DO NOTHING FOR IT, that’s a little ridiculous. Or, if you’re in a group of people and decide to pool your points (have only one person in your group collect the points for everyone)…shady! Or if you cheat at musical chairs (yes, I’m talking about you man) by physically pushing people out of the way and blocking one chair at all times…that’s wrong. Yes…I’m hating the player, not hating the game.

On the other hand, girl that won the dance off, you deserved it. Way to shake what your mama gave you. Oh, and way to bring back the running man. You nailed it.