Reminder – this is a review of the i747, from Bell.  Tom recently reviewed the international version; so if you’d like to compare, read his review first

They always say that the sequels never live up to the hype of the original.  No way Rocky 2 was better than Rocky… and just look at all those ‘Beethoven’ movies.

The Galaxy series of phones was a phenom of power and unrivaled ‘class’ for Android phones.  I remember finding out I was eligible for the Galaxy S (not really keeping up with the phones at the time) and just reading the stats and being so impressed.  Then the S2 was absolute ‘must have’ phone.  The “you’ve been Samsung’d” phrase became legendary.

So, this S3 … it had a lot of hype to follow up on, the Galaxy S1 and S2, plus the 2nd of their Nexus series.

How did it do?  On paper, it’s a power house.  It’s filled to the brim with hardware and software.  No way this can be a let down.  Was it going to be “The Empire Strikes Back” or “Revenge of the Sith”?  (I’ll let you decide which was the better sequel)… “Superman 3” or “Army of Darkness” … last one “Aliens 3” or “Toy Story 3”

Anyhow, on to the review (you know how excited I was to see it when I got home from my vacation?)

Samsung Galaxy S3

designed by lawyers!

-a little patent humour

Specifications

• 4.8″ Super AMOLED 1280×720 with Gorilla Glass 2
• 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon Processor
• 2GB RAM
• LTE
• 8MP / 2MP
• 16GB Storage
• NFC
• 2100mAh battery

Body

• 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm
• 134g

An excellent screen, especially compared to the Nexus.  The pentile screen on my nexus is really evident against an AMOLED.  Great colours, and with the soft buttons you have a reall ‘full screen’ feel to it.

I’m not big on that button in front tho’.  Just would prefer something ‘soft’ vs. a hard button.  Plus, to use S-Voice or the app switcher you have to double press or long press it.

You also get a large notification LED, which is multi-coloured.  Definitely no missing that.

Where’s the GALAXY branding on the device.  I miss that little status symbol.

I was very impressed that it was coming with the Gorilla Glass 2.  That puts my mind at ease.  However, the model I had sent to me had a bit of a scuff in the middle (probably how it came in the bubble package allowed the charger to scrape it)… but it got me thinking that even with GG2 it still has a bit of a scuff.  That scares me a little.

Everything else is good.  I’m not a fan of white, but that’s just me (I’d go to a black model to hide those 2 light sensors on the front of the unit, they stand out so much), and everything is in it’s place where it should be.  SD card is easy to get at, the back isn’t a crazy amount of snaps and clicks.

Software

Inside we’ve got 4.0.4 and TouchWiz 5.0.  This version brings a lot of enhancements:

• Stay Stay (stays on while you watch)
• Smart Call (just put the phone to your ear to have it dial a contact in front of you)
• Smart Gestures
• SVoice
• SBeam

All that and a very ‘organic’ feel to the phone.  From the bird call ringtones to the wobbly water slide to open feel.  This has that sense of nature all about the phone.

And this is where people have that taste of ‘designed by a lawyer’ … that it’s trying to remove itself from a ‘techy’ feel of the phone so that it can be considered totally apart from iOS.

There are some things that do bother me about the S3 and one of which is the overall blocky-ness of the UI.  In talking with others about it the word we’ve come up with is ‘elegance’.  And TouchWiz is lacking it.  Sure, it’s fluid, but it’s very old-ish looking with the square pegs kind of look.  Something that Sense and ICS/JB have done very well to make it look fresh and futuristic.

Does that stop it from being an amazing phone?  Hardly.  Just me wishing for something ‘more’ out of the ‘nature’ phone.

Also, I’m not a fan of how the app tray is cyclical, same with the home screens.  Minor detail, but I’m so used to being able to ‘come to an end’ in swiping that it gets me a little disoriented and lost in position as you continually scroll through (and how it doesn’t go from apps to widgets automatically — couldn’t find a setting to change this).

One thing I should also mention is that if you have dropbox, you’ll love this phone.  Plunk in your dropbox account, and sign up for the Samsung Hub/Account and you’ll get 50GB!!  50.  Yeah.

Performance

 

[for comparison, these were about 10% higher than the quad-core version and about 15-20% higher than the One X]

Those are the numbers… anecdotally, it performs beautifully with no perceptible lag, until you really really pile it on.  I said this of the One X… word for word.  But with the One X it was just barely noticeable if I really plunked in a few heavy games and played.  On the S3 it was noticeable.  Sure, it took a lot more (heck you have 2GB of RAM), but where you would think that it should handle WAY more, it doesn’t, and the lagging was definitely seen in the jittery-ness of the game.

Battery life, I’m noticing a drain.  Maybe it’s the dual core vs. Tom’s quad (don’t forget to read his review), but I’m noticing it drain.  It does quite well without heavy heavy usage.  But I put it in a head to head, non-scientific test with my Nexus.  I ran Samurai vs. Zombie on both and played a level on the Nexus, hit pause, played a level on the S3, back and forth for about half an hour, then played some Angry Birds in the same manner.

On the S3 you could see it had drained just slightly more than the Nexus.  And this is with a larger battery.  It comes with a 2100mAh battery vs. the 1850mAh battery the Nexus has.

But this is in those extreme conditions.  As for normal usage on the phone (grabbing emails, checking the web, etc…) it definitely saw a longer life than the Nexus.

 

This is after both phones sat in my office after a full day.  Barely used either (except using my Nexus for music on the bike to work).

You also get a handy ‘power saving’ feature, that’s available in the notification tray that can really help you out in  a pinch last another hour or so.

Now, how about all those nifty tweaks and new features it comes with.

SmartStay – it stays on so long as you look at it.  This is great so that the screen doesn’t time out if you’re reading a long paragraph or email etc. and not touching the screen.
Does it work?  I didn’t really notice.  I saw the eye thing pop up now and again, but again this is a feature you probably don’t realize that you need it.  Like my sister in law says about the special effects industry:  if you don’t notice it at all, then we’ve done a good job.  I think the same applies here.

S-Voice – the ‘Siri’ to Android… I hate using that expression, but as ubiquitous as it is it helps to describe.  It’s not bad at all.  The voice recognition is quite good, and it even passes the Douglas Adams test.

S-Beam – didn’t get to try it as I only had one S3 available.  That’s what I didn’t like about this.  It’s a cool feature, but you need someone with the EXACT SAME phone for it to work.  Hopefully when JB comes to the phone that will be taken care of.  As of now, I can’t beam from my Nexus (on JB) to the S3, but I can somewhat send the NFC tag from the S3 to my Nexus for a photo (but not photo goes with it).

You also have some cool things like face recognition in the phone from the Gallery (where it recognizes people and can email it to them if you like), or gestures like palm swiping to take screenshots (that takes a while to get used to) or even double tapping the top of your phone to jump to the top of a list of contacts, or emails, etc…

All neat features, but again, I believe they’re novelty features.  Nothing I would seek out specifically, but once I have them they’re just cool.

Camera

8MP is really good, and even the 2MP front.

I wasn’t so happy with the layout of the UI for the camera.  You have tons of options to play around with, but only allowed 4 ‘quick spots’ to change.  And I found that it was laid out such that I’d need 5.  So, if I wanted to get ‘quirky’ with the camera, it’d take me a while to get to the setting I want.

Yes, happy they have options to play with, not happy to have to find them.

Overall

Will it take the place of my Nexus?  It’s a tough call.  Were I to be in a buying position right now… I just might.  The price of the S3 is $160 on contract, vs. a Nexus at $30.  That’s a huge difference.

Yes, there’s more punch in the S3, and more staying power (RAM)… but the price difference is huge to swallow.

In the end it’ll come down to how much of a deal you want for a better camera, and if you use the SD card slot (I think you know my feelings on cards).  Otherwise, I don’t think the average consumer would notice the differences.

Want it all?  Get the S3.

Now, how soon will it get Jellybean?