Samsung Galaxy SIII thoughts
Friday, May 4, 2012 at 4:13PM "Kind of an iPhone 4 -> 4S move. This is the Samsung S2, just better in many ways. I like what I've seen and heard." Carel
"Classic move for a south east asian company. Basically copy everything your competition does but make everything just a little bigger. S-voice = siri. Bigger screen. "scan and match" = iTunes match Dropbox = iCloud (at least an attempt at it)
There is no innovation here but still probably the closest thing to compettition for apple. Screams "wannabe" to me but that won't stop it from selling well, especially in Asia and those phobic to Apple." David
"I should be impressed, but I find that I'm not. Am I losing it? Maybe my days of techno lust are over." Tom
"If this had been a couple of months earlier, it'd be much more "WOW".. but as it is, HTC's One X has stolen some of the thunder I think. No doubt this is an awesome phone.. but it's already got competition even before it's launched (and I'm ignoring the gimmicky software "features" like S voice.. purely talking hardware).
However I've not seen any benchmarks for the new Exynos chip so maybe that'll amaze us all with its speed and power-efficiency." Malcolm
"I think the SGS3 will be a success. As successful as the SGS2 I don't know - but I'm sure there's people looking for an upgrade, possibly on an average android, who might pay the extra.
The SGS3 does another clever thing I think - no doubt the iPhone 5 will come out, and I think most of us expect a larger screen. But not a 4.8 inch one. So say they come out with a 4.3 inch screen - it'll still look small against what could be the leading android phone.
Time will tell - could be an interesting future. There's no doubt Samsung are doing well, it's likely they'll continue to do so. Apple I'm sure will be the same.
What it does leave is the entire remaining smartphone base scrapping for some middle ground..." Peter C.
A range of thoughts from the most intelligent readership on the web. Thanks for those.
I was going to post an immediate reaction on Thursday evening, but thought it best to wait and I am glad I have. Varying thoughts enter my mind with regards to the Galaxy S III and I realise that these big new releases are getting harder to write about. Over the past 4 years we have been expecting, and often witnessing, the release of phones that are so completely different and compelling that there has been much to be excited about. For the moment, those days are over.
We probably need to face facts and realise that at this time no company will release a new smartphone that offers as much ‘newness’ as the original iPhone or the wonderfully high-end Android phones. We are at a point where phones will evolve and there is simply no compelling requirement for the manufacturers to offer complete change. Add to this the fact that they probably have no practical ideas for massive changes and you start to see why phones like the Galaxy S III offer what they do.
I personally believe that the Galaxy SIII will sell by the million and that it looks like a much more consumer friendly phone than the SII, which of course also sold by the million. There are some new touches like the voice system and front camera and these should be enough for hardened SII users to potentially make the jump. This will be a very good smartphone and when David says that there is little innovation here, he is right. However, did Apple show any real innovation with the 4S? It would be easy to argue that it is much better than previous voice recognition systems, but surveys show that it is not being used as much as Apple would like and the performance has hardly been stunning so far.
The 4S was an evolution of the 4, in my case a very bad one, and the SIII is an evolution of the SIII, hopefully a good one, and that is what we should adjust ourselves to expect for the foreseeable future. I agree with Malcolm that the One X has stolen a lot of the SIII’s thunder, but this should not been seen as a bad thing. The One X and SIII are some distance ahead of most other Android smartphones and it means that the others will need to play catch up. Apple will do so this year and the arguments will continue as to which is better, but let’s be clear and stress that most people’s personal preferences and the arguments that ensue are platform related and little to do with the hardware. Give me iOS on a One X or Galaxy SIII and I would have what I consider to be the best smartphone for me. I don’t stick with the iPhone because of the hardware, which I personally feel is dated and underperforms in many areas, but because of the operating system.
The Galaxy SIII is a progressive move and likely the best that Samsung can offer at this time. After much thought I do believe it to be potentially very, very good and yet another step toward mobile perfection. A position that we will sadly never reach no matter how much we want it to happen.
Reader Comments (11)
"from the most intelligent readership on the web"
First compliment I've had all week :)
I was talking about everyone else;)
I was being more philosophical than normal :P
1. I still the Note is better, but
2. Until you actually encounter a GS3 and spend some time using it, I am not sure you can really evaluate it
1. Interesting to see Galaxy note users are becoming as discipled as some apple users when it comes to their device
2. No kidding. Shaun isn't evaluating but just speculating on the GS3 based on the info that we know, as we all do when contemplating a just-released device. I'm sure there will be a full review one he gets his hands on it.
3. Completely agree Shaun, the GS3 is to the GS2 as the 4 is to the 4s. More interesting was the hype around the launch was almost getting to Apple levels of speculation and I think Samsung would do well to keep that up each launch.
Interestesting comment David about Note users, but so true. The Note is a true bespoke device, but actual ly really amazing and versatile . That's why it's going to be difficult to replace with anything else
A Samsung executive was rumoured to have said that the Note is the real SIII, based on its release schedule and leap in technology ;-)
And for the record, I am only interested in the Note II ;-)
Strange but I was given access to high level emails that said the Note was the really the new S3 too :-)
OK, there seems to be a lot of negative comments about the S3 (some very expected), for what it's worth here's my two penneth...
I disagree that this is just a 4 to 4s moment for Samsung. Put both of those phones next to each other, even powered on and spot the difference; one has a Siri button. The S3 is markedly different from the S2 by comparison. Totally different body, physically bigger screen, massive jump in screen resolution. Brand new quad core processor, redisigned camera optics, facial tracking, Video overlay software... To say there is no innovation either, and after the 4s release is laughable. Yes Apple had Siri before this, and Samsung had Samsung talk before Siri. It wasn't as good as Siri but the same concept, plus Apple's 'new' pull down notifications menu, looks very familiar to any Android user. Phone makers copy some of the best ideas of other makes, and that's clearly going both ways now.
If I didn't already have a Note I would seriously consider the S3 as my next phone. The HTC One X is close to it but the smaller, non-removable battery, lower internal memory and no memory expansion slot kills that as a phone option for me.
One thing I don't like is the advert for it, as premiered at the Earls Court event. I don't want to see artsy fartsy images and dreamy comments of how this phone knows what I'm thinking. I want to see the phone in action. Apple still wipes the floor with everyone else when it comes to showing their products off.
I would agree it doesn't seem to be ground breaking and does seem to be more of an evolution. The only new and interesting feature would possibly be the use of the front camera features i.e. keeping screen on, waking up phone, direct dial etc.... Not sure exactly how innovative but definitely different and not what is currently available.
But then how innovative have phones or even tablets been lately? New iPad's big selling feature - its screen! iPhone 4s big selling feature - Siri - we have had voice activation for ages so not really game changing.
So what is really interesting about this launch is how Samsung has taken a leaf from Apple and started to do some decent marketing along the same strategy that Apple does - imply your device is ground breaking and has brought first to the market (even though they might be slight evolutions of what has always been available i.e. facetime and siri.).
I think we're currently near the limits of what current technology can deliver, so naturally there's a slowdown in innovation.
There are still plenty of new technologies that could revolutionise the mobile arena, for example fold-out screens would make tablets obsolete overnight. The screens already exist, they're just very poor right now.
We're also getting very close to having the phone as the central processing hub beaming wirelessly to whatever screen you like and being controlled by a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Most people will no longer need a 'full' tablet, laptop or PC; they can just be dumb terminals.
Which reminds me, I was kinda hoping that project to bring full desktop Ubuntu to phones when they're docked would show up in the S3.