Engadget's Samsung Galaxy S III review
engadget.com
engadget.com
However, when it dies, I'm definitely not buying a Samsung product, and probably not buying Android. I cannot scream the word "brand" loud enough. There's so much choice available, that when your customers feel ripped off, they'll go elsewhere.
GPS has never worked. Updates were very slow to be available. Using their official tool my phone bricked when an update finally was available. Until I put cyanogenmod on it, it stuttered and apps crashed. Even when it was still relatively new, there were apps that it couldn't run (Lionheart). My carrier put a porn-buying app on it (yes, I hold Samsung and Google at least partially responsible for that).
Brand, brand, brand, brand, brand. The fact that, 2 years later, I still get upset when I see the words "Samsung" or "Galaxy S", tell you something about consumer behavior...it isn't just me...US car manufacturers went through it too.
However - when I broke my phone, the Galaxy S II was by far the most suitable phone for me short of switching to iOS which I didn't want to do for a few different reasons.
'Punishing' Samsung was less than rational and so I took a chance on them again. And I've been extremely happy with it. It's way way better than the Galaxy S and I have no real complaints about it. So - Samsung screwed me on the GPS last time. I'll have to let them off - or rather - stop anthropomorphising a large corporation in ways that don't really make much sense...
I'll probably never trust Samsung with my smartphone-money again. Might just test out Windows Phone just to get the ungodly build quality of a Nokia :).
GPS didn't really work, but then GPS wasn't accurate in China anyway.
I now use my S1 as a wireless access point with an all you can eat data connection living in the UK. I do all my working (from my kitchen table) using this.
It's not perfect but by god it's a workhorse of a smartphone, and if I have the money would get an S3. As long as Samsung keep making phones like this I'll keep buying them, it's the smartphone nokia.
Similar experience though:
- GPS didn't worked, those who say it works should first see iPhones' GPS performance.
- The biggest problem which I feel is the update process. As soon as they release a new version, they leave older one like a bastard child.
- Even when they release its update why can't that be global. Why some countries gets a preferencial treatment.
I am not gonna buy or recommend samsung ever again.
I mean, it's fair to say Galaxy S was pretty bad, but I don't get the "not gonna buy or recommend samsung ever again". Why not "iPhone 1 has no apps or 3G or ..., I'm not gonna buy or recommend iPhone ever again"? Products improve in newer releases, there's no reason to drop the whole line because version 1 was bad.
I dislike the phone experience (and awful battery life) on the Ace, and I use my Nokia as my phone, but the assisted GPS on the Ace works extremely well and quite fast (a LOT faster than the Nokia which also has GPS).
My Nokia can't compete on the internet and apps experience, though (probably the Windows Phones will... too bad Nokia won't do Android, I'd buy Nokia over Samsung).
True to form, when the Galaxy Nexus came out I bought that. It's definitely streets ahead of the original device and I have faith that this one will receive updates during my contract.
However, that first Galaxy phone will always be in the back of my mind, and I truly believe that the first Galaxy would have turned a lot of initial Android users over to the iPhone.
btw I am not an Apple fan.
But the S2 is head and shoulders over it. Fastest phone I've ever used (yes, even faster than the iPhone 4S), the GPS precision was the best of all the devices we own at the company (we develop a product that requires GPS so we keep tabs on that), and the new version of TouchWiz is as good as anything else. Still, I'd love to have it updated to ICS at some point (and AT&T has promised they'd do it), but all in all it's a great Android phone.
The Galaxy S2 was the first device where Samsung really delivered.
No to both? -- Do not buy.
Why is it so difficult for hardware manufacturers to refrain from putting their poor attempts to improve stock android on their devices. Do they not realize they'd actually be able to more effectively differentiate themselves if they just left it stock?
I know many people don't like it, but I actually prefer their UI to the stock Android one. I haven't actually heard anyone saying why exactly they don't like the Samsung version though.
Why not install stock Android yourself on any unlocked device you like? That way you have your choice of many hardware options.
Good for you.
Why is it so difficult for hardware manufacturers to refrain from putting their poor attempts to improve stock android on their devices
In the <Android 2.3 era those skins were critical in making the operating system usable. I would argue that they still offer huge value for an average consumer.
There is a world of hundreds of millions of smartphone users who are not like the people who visit HN. Who appreciate when they have a camera and information on the lockscreen, a quick selector in the drag down, and on and on. Little things added first in skins, improving the Android experience. That isn't me or you, but good god the boring "stock Android or GTFO" comments need to stop. They are ignorant and detached from reality.
They delay updates (sometimes permanently) they caused noticeable performance issues - especially early on. The changes made to apps (with HTC's sense in mind) ruined a lot of the design of the default applications and made it hard to use different android devices.
While the giant glossy widgets and laggy animations may have impressed some, the overall damage caused wasn't merely bad for the power users - but everyone. What made this issue worse was that until the Nexus line it was essentially impossible just to run stock android on a modern phone.
Cyanogen is cool, but in practice it has it's share of problems (gps not working, radio issues, having to unlock, root and flash the phone).
I wonder about the battery draw of constantly running the front camera and doing face recognition, but if that's not an issue I don't see any downside. I wish my own phone did it.
Even if it uses some power, it might be a net improvement for some people who would set their screen timeout to very long durations otherwise. I'm sure that is even more of an issue for a device with such a humongous screen -- it'll take you twice as long to read an entire screen of information.
This is offtopic, but I really wish phone makers would put more effort into making screens that are usable outdoors. Even in gloomy England using my phone outside is a challenge.
There are few efforts to improve this (Pixel Qi, Mirasol), and they aren't getting into smartphones.
I was seriously considering purchasing this phone until I saw the comparison shots.
My first "Smartphone" was the LG Incite, running Windows 5.5 (I think?). It was absolutely unusable outdoors, at all. I can't overstate how awful trying to do anything outdoors with that phone was. Since then I've sworn I would not purchase another phone that was anywhere as bad in this regard.
Unfortunately it's pretty obvious the SIII is even worse than the SII, which I had.
I'm really glad now that I've jumped to the iPhone 4S after being a devoted Android fan for 3 years.
Social tag. When you first take a photo of someone, the phone asks you to name them. From then on, it does all the hard work of recognizing that person again in future snaps, and linking up their social networking profiles so that you can share your photos faster.
I really think battery capacity is the reason this isn't happening. Battery capacity is really lagging behind everything else. Seems like every new phone that comes out is faster than ever, and runs out of power faster than ever.
But getting both 1.4GHz quad-core performance and long battery life in 135 grams (mainly due to process shrink) is very impressive and bodes well for the future.
With the current state of handset development I would say I only need to upgrade when the app store stops supporting my phone.
It seems to me like the Smart Phone Market is already hitting a plateau. It's like the desktop computer market. If you buy a computer today, unless you MUST play all future games on Ultra graphics it will probably last you just fine for 5+ years.
Having gone through a number of devices over the years, I couldn't disagree more. Screens have gotten tremendously better, performance has improved by leaps and bounds, and connectivity has exploded. Even the touchscreen sensor on a current phone is a world better than a two year old device (well if we're speaking about non-iPhone. Apple had a pretty good sensor two years ago).
I'd say your lack of inclination to upgrade says more about you than devices. Not as an insult, but you just don't rely upon it as a principal device like many. Mine because essentially a portable computer and I am very excited about each new iteration.
I have an HTC Rezound, top tier at the time of it's release about 6 months ago, and it was significantly improved over the Motorola Atrix it replaced, which was also top tier at the time of its release about 6 months previously. I haven't played with newer phones since then, but nothing I have read indicates that they've improved very much since the last batch of releases in December, and I don't think the human eye is capable of perceiving much more pixel density than we already have.
Screens have gotten so much better that there's no point in improving them. With 300+ PPI screens having been available for a year or so, the only real improvement possible would be to make them 3D or usable outdoors, which does not seem to be progressing very quickly.
I have an HTC Rezound, which was a top tier phone when I bought it 6 months ago, and the display is leaps ahead of my Motorola Atrix, which was a top tier phone when I bought it last April (something like ~340 PPI compared to ~275 PPI). That kind of improvement will never be possible again, because the human eye couldn't perceive it. So, yeah, I think we have reached a plateau, though certainly not 2 years ago.
Screens have gotten so much better that there's no point in improving them
When did pixel density become the only element worth considering? Give me a screen with the power consumption and long-term viability of super LCD, with the contrast ratio of SAMOLED and I'd be over the moon. As is, however, each are serious compromises in one way or the other.
Make battery life better while offering high performance (the the Krait). Give me better cameras and speakers and sensors. Give me a little projector. Give me better integration.
There is a tonne of improvements to be had.
Dismissing it out of hand, particularly when basically every camera sensor, and every encoded video and jpeg does similar things with color, just seems odd to me. It's an engineering trade-off with lots of in-and-outs for each specific decision, not an unholy or unclean technology that contaminates everything it touches.
From what I've read so far, the PenTile technology is used to achieve a brighter screen at lower power consumption with a minuscule loss of precision.
LG makes displays for the iPhone and older iPads. The "retina" display for the new iPad is produced by Samsung.
Full Disclosure: I'm the CEO of Nouvoyance, the company that develops PenTile.