Samsung Galaxy S III Hands-on

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There she is, folks, the phone that we've been waiting for so long has finally arrived - the Samsung Galaxy S III itself! Introduced at a glamorous event in London, the Galaxy S III comes to freshen up Samsung's flagship Android handset offering, and it really brings a ton of new features!

Inspired by nature's beauty, Samsung has tried to recreate that kind of awesomeness with the design of the S III. The body of the device resembles a smoothly-curved pebble, while the interface features ripple-like lock screen animation. But it's not only that - some of the new features related to how you interact with the device are also inspired by nature, but more on that later.



As we said, the shape of the device is curved - a radical departure from the S II's rectangular appearance. The back side is still plastic - none of the ceramics stuff that was rumored, although it still feels quite decent to the touch. It's a firm, glossy plastic – nothing out of the ordinary.



The front is dominated by a large 4.8" HD Super AMOLED screen – significantly bigger than the 4.3" panel of the S II. As you've probably noticed, there isn't a "Plus" in the name of the screen tech, hinting that it's based on PenTile matrix. The good news is that with these HD resolutions that we now have, being based on PenTile really doesn't mean much – the image quality is still great! Of course, the display is so detailed that you can easily make out the smallest detail.

Camera-wise, the S III is equipped with an 8MP sensor, which is now BSI for superior low-light performance, and features zero shutter lag, allowing you to take lots of photos without delay inbetween. Naturally, we'll have to wait and see just how good the photos and video are, but we really have our hopes high for this camera.

Many of you are probably wondering what processor the Galaxy S III has, and the answer is as expected – a quad-core Exynos processor, although it isn't specified at this time exactly which model it is. The processor is clocked at 1.4GHz – enough to support everything you throw at it.

On the software front Samsung isn't surprising us. The Galaxy S III runs Android 4 ICS, covered with TouchWiz. There aren't that many differences between this version of TouchWiz and the previous one, but there sure are some very features added. For example, The Galaxy S III has S Voice – which is a Siri wannabe, so to speak. It will listen to your vocal input and will do the stuff you ask it for. For example, you may ask it what's the weather today, and it will respond with a forecast. Ask it to start the camera for you, because you want to take a picture – and it will. We'll see if it's good enough to beat Siri in a direct one-on-on fight!

Another example is the S Beam functionality, which allows you to transfer media like photos and vidieo between compatible devices using Wi-Fi Direct and NFC. Yet another bonus feature is AllShare, allows you to stream the same content on multiple devices.



There are some more special, usability-centric tweaks that we really find very intriguing. For example, the S III will have that strange habit of tracking your eyes using the FF camera. And, imagine that it's late and you're reading a book. You don't feel like sleeping yet, so you keep on reading. However, every once in a while the screen will go dark, forcing you to touch it in order to bring the book back. Well, with the Galaxy S III that shouldn't happen, as it will be looking in your eyes and since it will see that you're looking at the screen – it won't let it turn off. The same goes for the opposite situation – if you fall asleep, the Galaxy S III will notice that and will turn its screen off as well.

In addition, Samsung has concocted a nice little equalizer feature that will attempt to fix the frequency range of low-quality calls.

So, when you'll be finally able to hold the Galaxy S III in your hands? Relatively soon – starting May 29, the Galaxy S III will be available in Europe and Asia. Release dates for the U.S. carrier versions of the phone are yet to be announced, but this should happen sooner compared to what happened last year.

Finally, we'd like to say that the S III shapes up as a killer handset – both hardware- and software-wise. We're looking forward to reviewing it and bringing you even more details about its new features!

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