Engadget Review

[Tkbredx]

Youre right. I was mainly speaking of when he said " The Snapdragon variant of the One X has similar computing power, battery life and photographic credibility, but it also has a much better user interface that sticks more closely to the guiding ethos of Android 4.0. It also has a more forward-looking physical design, while the GS III sticks to the tried and true styles of old. Perhaps the biggest sacrifice you'd make by going for the One X over the GS III is the loss of the cheap storage offered by the microSD card. That's a painful thing to give up, but given how deeply we feel about the need for Android to move forward and not get stuck in a Gingerbread-flavored groundhog day, we'll take the hit."Maybe I am too emotional? Lol.

 

[cdd543]

It wasn't a great thorough review imho--This thing is getting wildly varied reviews. Many of the international reviews claimed it easily trumped the one x except for build quality and screen, The verge claims it has one of the best cameras and yet others claim it's mediocre.
Verge claims TW is way better than sense on HOX and engadget claims TW feels like they are using gingerbread. I prefer the verge writers personally and will skip a the next review written by Sharif Sakr. I find it odd that neither review detailed fluidity of the phone as that was something that bugged me about the HOX(lack of). I look forward to making my own judgements

 

[planoman]

I thought it was a good review as I have come to trust Engadget's reviews. It was a bit shorter than others but still good. I saw enough in this review and others to confirm my decision to get the SGSIII over the One X. I do admit that I do not see a lot of differences with the TW ICS (4.0.3) interface on my International Galaxy Note and Gingerbread.

I admit I am biased in favor of Samsung and I am expecting a great experience once the SGSIII hits AT&T, hopefully in June!

 

[planoman]

GSM arena had an interesting editorial comparing the GS II with the GS III, though the GS II they were comparing has ICS installed, so it is either an international version of one with a custom ROM. The conclusion was that the GS III is a good bet if the $$ make sense to the buyer. As someone whose been carrying around a totally outdated iPhone 3G slug,it would seem the GS3 would be the way to go, but I'm not ruling out the Skyrocket as yet.

The GS3 screen looks impressive as does the camera and it's obviously very fast too. And all the reviewers seem to be fan boys of various hardware, like the Phone Dog whose quite clearly an Apple guy. The iPhone 4S did set some standards which were quickly blown away by the Nexus and other phones, not to mention the fact that it's NOT an LTE device. But since this thread is about reviews, they're all going to be subject to personal taste.

I cannot see getting a NON HD screen at this point such as the skyrocket. I just sold one because I could not look at it after using my Galaxy Note. At this point all of my phones will have to have HD screens going forward.

 

[JHBThree]

Engadget are iPhone fans though, so this was to be expected.

The last couple of sentences basically say they took the HOX over the S3 because Sense is more aligned with ICS than touchwizz, which is something this site have said. Thing is, no-one ever says specifically what is better aligned in Sense. I've played with a HOX and to me Sense doesn't seem to be too different to my original desire.

If nothing else the S3 wins on a slight performance gain, better battery life and having the card slot.

Some of the comments on reviews are hilarious, all moaning about poor build quality and cheap feel when they haven't even seen the phone, let alone held it.

Another, quite detailed review here: Samsung Galaxy S3 review | from TechRadar's expert reviews of Mobile phones

Read Phil's thoughts on the new Touchwiz. While Sense 4 complements and adds to ICS, the new touchwiz sits on top of it, doing its own thing while sticking vaguely to ICS paradigms. With the new Sense, its very apparent that ICS is a part of it. The same cannot be said of touchwiz. (More than a few hands ons said the experience was not different than the old version)

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[JHBThree]

Blehhh, the hardware may not be revolutionary, but I feel as if the software is. No other phone has features like it. And theyre pretty cool

To each his own, I guess. Engadget was no fan of the majority of their new software features.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[Small_law]

I really wasn't excited about this phone at all, but then I saw the Verge's review and it looked awesome. Performance was stellar. If anything, the S3 strikes me as a beefed up and improved galaxy nexus of sorts.

 

[Mark_C]

Read Phil's thoughts on the new Touchwiz. While Sense 4 complements and adds to ICS, the new touchwiz sits on top of it, doing its own thing while sticking vaguely to ICS paradigms. With the new Sense, its very apparent that ICS is a part of it. The same cannot be said of touchwiz. (More than a few hands ons said the experience was not different than the old version)

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Yeah I've read what Phil has written but there are no specifics, its just vague statements. When you say "the same cannot be said of touchwizz" can you give an example ? because I'm really not seeing it.

If you look at that tech radar review you'll see that TW uses some stock ICS screens, HTC don't (least not in those areas).
HTC also screwed around with the multi tasking stuff.
By far the worst part of my HTC Desire is the contacts area, its a pain in the backside.

Seems to me on ICS Sense covers up more of ICS than TW.

From what I can gather earlier versions of TW were a bit naff but its changed alot since then and some are still holding on to preconceptions of the earlier versions.

 

[JHBThree]

Yeah I've read what Phil has written but there are no specifics, its just vague statements. When you say "the same cannot be said of touchwizz" can you give an example ? because I'm really not seeing it.

If you look at that tech radar review you'll see that TW uses some stock ICS screens, HTC don't (least not in those areas).
HTC also screwed around with the multi tasking stuff.
By far the worst part of my HTC Desire is the contacts area, its a pain in the backside.

Seems to me on ICS Sense covers up more of ICS than TW.

From what I can gather earlier versions of TW were a bit naff but its changed alot since then and some are still holding on to preconceptions of the earlier versions.

HTC was built on Holo standards. Its clear on any screen that it uses the Android design standards. Touchwiz doesn't. It replaces Holo with Samsungs idea of what a good design looks like.

Touchwiz, quite literally, is a skin ON TOP OF ICS that hides the os. Sense is integrated with ICS, and its clearly apparent.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[wilfreb]

worst review of the GS3 so far, i will love see Joire made this review. empty, nothing new, boring and very biased.

 

[Crispy]

HTC was built on Holo standards. Its clear on any screen that it uses the Android design standards. Touchwiz doesn't. It replaces Holo with Samsungs idea of what a good design looks like.

Touchwiz, quite literally, is a skin ON TOP OF ICS that hides the os. Sense is integrated with ICS, and its clearly apparent.

Can you justify this? Let me give you a simple counterexample -

ICS Gallery (Nexus)

TouchWiz gallery (GS3)

Sense 4 gallery (E4GLTE)

You tell me which one is more faithful to ICS. There are examples of this throughout the UI.
TW is also a dark themed skin, like ICS. Sense 4 is blinding white.

 

[s14tat]

Yup. FWIW, the VZW GN is still the highest reviewed Android phone they've had (unless I'm wrong in thinking it had an 8.7), but most of that is due to ICS I reckon .

The Verge just has better presentation, and more importantly, better writers. Which isn't shocking, since essentially the heart and soul of Engadget left and founded it lol

If i remember correctly they actually rated the international version of the GS2 a 9.0 or 9.5 I do not remember. That I believe was the highest rated android device ever, and all for good reason. The GS2 felt like it was practically a entire generation ahead of the competition at the time.

edit: I just read the engadget review. What are you so mad about Tkbredx lol? This review describes this phone exactly as how I expected to. I see nothing but praises about this phone. Just because they're not " omg this phone is bomb " doesn't mean its a review that is biased against it.

 

[dmmarck]

If i remember correctly they actually rated the international version of the GS2 a 9.0 or 9.5 I do not remember. That I believe was the highest rated android device ever, and all for good reason. The GS2 felt like it was practically a entire generation ahead of the competition at the time.

edit: I just read the engadget review. What are you so mad about Tkbredx lol? This review describes this phone exactly as how I expected to. I see nothing but praises about this phone. Just because they're not " omg this phone is bomb " doesn't mean its a review that is biased against it.

Could be. Not gonna lie, completely forgot about that lol

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Xparent Cyan Tapatalk 2

 

[JHBThree]

Can you justify this? Let me give you a simple counterexample -

ICS Gallery (Nexus)
Click to view quoted image

Click to view quoted image


TouchWiz gallery (GS3)
Click to view quoted image

Click to view quoted image


Sense 4 gallery (E4GLTE)
Click to view quoted image

Click to view quoted image


You tell me which one is more faithful to ICS. There are examples of this throughout the UI.
TW is also a dark themed skin, like ICS. Sense 4 is blinding white.

Sense is, actually. Go read the Android style guide and you'll understand why. TW ignores almost all of the UI 'suggestions' the android team has made.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[JHBThree]

worst review of the GS3 so far, i will love see Joire made this review. empty, nothing new, boring and very biased.

Just because you disagree, which youre entitled to do. Her criticisms are valid if you're being objective.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mark_C]

Sense is, actually. Go read the Android style guide and you'll understand why. TW ignores almost all of the UI 'suggestions' the android team has made.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Ok but that doesn't mean it looks like Gingerbread as Phil says.

On the example that was posted above it seems pretty clear to me that TW is closer to ICS than Sense.

Seems there is a lot of FUD over TW.
Either way I thought Sense on the HOX looked pretty similar to my original desire.

 

[Crispy]

Just because Sense follows UI guidelines like placement of menu button doesn't mean it's closer to the ICS philosophy. The goal of Sense is to do everything their own way, they try to replace a lot more menus and options than any other skin. E.g. Changing the way lists scroll, the task manager etc. TW has a cartoony look but their goal seems to be adding functions on top of the OS. Sense gets a lot of praise for its consistency and looks, there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Two things are readily apparent after reading these two reviews.

1) This phone was totally overblown by the prerelease hype. All phones are, this one just seems worse. It looks like a great phone, and I'm sure it is. But it's not game changing like the SGSII was when it was released. It took a long time for other manufacturers to catch up to it. The SGSIII has competition now, that beats or matches it in almost every area (camera being the main exception, SGSIII appears to have better picture quality, but worse hardware )

2) Certain people that were all about the SGSIII being miles ahead of the One X now don't have as much to say. It's a mile long race that will be deciding by a couple of seconds, really.

Samsung has taken the suggested way of doing things and thrown them out the window. This is a fact. Android shouldn't have a menu button or removable storage. Period. This is clearly a step in the wrong direction for the Android platform as a whole. Yes, people want these things, but Samsung should've went ahead and planned for the future.

Also, Touchwiz very much appears as an Android replacement, not so much an Android phone. Samsung is definitely differentiating with software, and that's fine, but Sense appears to flow more fluidly with stock ICS. The options you get with a dropdown menu aren't what we're talking about. We're talking about things like the menu button, the Holo theme, etc.


IMHO Samsung has more than enough time to do a "reboot" of Touchwiz, like what HTC did with Sense. The SGSIII looks like more-of-the-same from Samsung. Exactly what I expected it to be. (for the record, I thought it would be a great device, just not miles ahead of everything else)

 

[HTC_fanboy]

This is what stuck out to me.

The worst thing about the GS III? No matter how hard it tries, it just isn't greater than the sum of the HTC One X's parts.

Taken from Engadget's review.

 

[Tkbredx]

Personally, Kevin, I like the fact that Samsung actually takes in the opinion of people and kept the menu button and removable storage. Well atleast for removable storage, theres no reason not to have it really.