Is anyone else disappointed with the design?

[Sanosuke]

I think another thing which is notable is the bezel. It's minor, but I was thinking having an edge to edge screen would be very nice. the bezel isn't huge or anything, but it's not the almost bezelless design people were hoping for. I agree with you that expectations were too high, and the SGS3 is pretty nice. I guess the disappointment for me is that it doesn't really stand out from the rest of the offerings out there right now. Even the fact that people can still make reasonable comparisons between it and the Nexus is proof of that. It should be the next big thing, not just another phone among all the rest.

 

[E_man]

I think another thing which is notable is the bezel. It's minor, but I was thinking having an edge to edge screen would be very nice. the bezel isn't huge or anything, but it's not the almost bezelless design people were hoping for. I agree with you that expectations were too high, and the SGS3 is pretty nice. I guess the disappointment for me is that it doesn't really stand out from the rest of the offerings out there right now. Even the fact that people can still make reasonable comparisons between it and the Nexus is proof of that. It should be the next big thing, not just another phone among all the rest.

With the race to make phones, it's hard to make a revolution. Samsung has made a few that have pushed the bleeding edge, but this is definitely better hardware than the Nexus. It's just more of an evolution. I think the One X was the tipping point for this generation. It packed everything in, and there wasn't a whole lot to stand above it in. I think the fact that people are making fair comparisons to the One X says how good of a job samsung did. However, it was less of a leap for samsung to get there than HTC.

 

[StinDaWg]

I think another thing which is notable is the bezel. It's minor, but I was thinking having an edge to edge screen would be very nice.

Ya, I was hoping for something like this...

In this design you could have fit a 4.8" 16:9 screen into the body of the 4.3" Galaxy S2. As it currently is, it is larger than both the One X and Galaxy Nexus, which are already bordering on too large IMO.

 

[E_man]

Ya, I was hoping for something like this...

Click to view quoted image


In this design you could have fit a 4.8" 16:9 screen into the body of the 4.3" Galaxy S2. As it currently is, it is larger than both the One X and Galaxy Nexus, which are already bordering on too large IMO.

You'd need some very smart software to get that to work. Your palm would touch the screen all the time. I already do that on my SGS1.

 

[metz65]

It's a nice phone, it just isn't the fabled white whale everyone wanted it to be.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[EnigmaticPsychotic]

It's growing on me the more I see it.

 

[nyc_rock]

I'm a little disappointed. Might just stick with my GS2 or give the X a whirl.

 

[chesalaam]

I most likely get the GS3, more features than the one X

but how does it fare against the new evo? it would seem that the latter and not the one x would be the more appropriate contender seeing as how it has more features than its one x brethren

 

[MannyZ28]

I actually like the design a lot. The idea was to take a rather large phone and make it feel small. I hate to say it, it almost reminds me a bit of the iPhone 3GS, just sexier. I never had a problem with how my E4GT felt, this whole "plastic" feel everyone is complaining about is just a matter of opinion. My E4GT felt much more solid than the Evo 4G with it's lifting screen problem or the Evo 3d with it's annoying 2d/3d switch and gigantic pimple of a camera button, which brings me to my next point....why do people want a physical camera button so much? It's just another bump on the side of an otherwise smooth phone, and to me, it's harder to hold the phone still to press that camera button than it is to just touch the screen. How hard is it to touch the screen with your thumb instead of having to fiddle around with some physical button on the phone.

Too much hype? Underwhelmed? Well, in the tech world there is this thing called reality. We all know that there are faster chips out there and more are constantly being developed. But availability of those brand new chips always get in the way, as is the case with US LTE capable Exynos chips and the much beloved Exynos 5250. It just wasn't ready yet and Samsung had to make some strategic decisions. As they mentioned in their keynote, it's not just about technology for technologies sake. I'd say 80% of the public don't even know what an Exynos or S4 are, nor do they care. The phone is smooth and fast, that's all they care about. Same with the big hoopla behind the display. How many of you have seen the display for themselves? Phil said he could barely tell the difference and the GS3 still had the advantage over the One X's excellent screen when it comes down to contrast. Does your nose frequently touch the screen of your phone or do you carry a microscope with you at all times to belinger that "horrible pixelated" pentile display? Do you always carry an Evo 4G LTE and a One X with you so you can compare that "inferior" display in your GS3 to them? For that matter, do you always have your TOUCH screen pristinely clean so you can actually see those pentile flaws? It's a huge improvement over the 800 x 480 of the Epic 4G Touch, and I still get compliments from people about how nice my screen looks.

For the Sprint crowd (like me) it will be an interesting decision making process. Both phones will have the same processor most likely, both will have removable storage, but the edge goes to the GS3 with the 64 gb option and 50 gb of dropbox storage on top of that. The Evo will have a kickstand and a camera button, I don't care about the camera button, and while I do miss the kickstand from my orginal Evo on occasion, I really never used it that much, give me sleek and uncluttered over the rather busy design of the Evo 4g LTE. Sense vs Touchwiz? Again, a matter of personal preference, I do like Sense, but I think I like TW better, especially with all the new featuers they added. I wish they would have come up with some new icons, I mean come on, the contacts, email, phone and messaging icons look the same....really?? Also, the messaging app looks pretty much the same too, I use handcent currently, I wonder if the "move the phone to your ear while your texting to call that person" will work with 3rd party messaging apps as well. What I did notice in one of the many videos I have watched so far....no moving wallpaper....for real? WTH? All those great wallpapers and live wallpapers and we're stuck looking at just one section of it, I just don't get it.

Ok, I am going to stop here and hunt down more videos, but that's my assessment so far.

 

[Crispy]

I feel the same way, this is a much closer competitor to the E4GLTE than the One X, since it has the bigger battery, S4 (in US) and microSD. For me the decision will be simple - if Verizon offers this and they manage not to totally destroy the phone with their mods and bloatware, I'm getting it simply due to the LTE network. Otherwise, I will have to decide between this and the new E4GLTE on Sprint.

TW has a lot more features than Sense 4, who cares if it looks like 'stock ICS' or not. If I want the stock experience, I can always install a rom, which again will be a lot easier on the S3 since its easier to root.

 

[Tkbredx]

What MannyZ28 said +1gazillion

 

[Mikest]

The first time I saw it I wasn't a fan of the design. The river rock theme, the center button, and now you throw in wireless charging. I feel like I owned this phone before, it was the Palm Pre. I know it's light years beyond the old Palm spec wise and feature set but design wise it looks like a flat pre (perhaps a Pre 3 is more accurate). Really I don't think I'd be as bothered by it if it wasn't made of shiny fisher price plastic. Oh well I was going to put a case on it anyway if I bought it. Im just a bit underwhelmed by the physical design. The software features I actually like. I hope the Siri Alternative works well and the facial recognition sounds great.

Wont really know until I see one in the wild and hold it in my hand. Of course US carriers could radically change the form factor once they get their evil hands on it.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Looking at photos of the phone, I was okay with the design, but not impressed. However after watching a few videos, particular ones with good lighting, I'm starting to think the phone looks better than the still phones really show.

 

[Ravynmagi]

As am I. After all the hype this was a total fail for me.

-Pentile screen. Are you kidding me? Of all the rumors a Super Amoled HD+ was the most obvious of coming true. BGR said it was going to be a 1080p screen. While that was a stretch I'm very surprised they couldn't put out a 720p + display considering they make their own and this is their flagship device for 2012.

-Plastic build quality. Every rumor pointed towards a ceramic or metallic case. What do we get? Same plastic build quality. But even worse, they've went back to the cheap glossy plastic of the original Galaxy S. Absolute head scratcher there.

-2100 battery. Could have been worse, but I was hoping for at least 2500. If you can fit 3300 into a Razr Maxx I don't know why more manufacturers can't. The S3 isn't much thinner.

-Bezels not much thinner. Rumors pointed to an edge to edge design for the screen. While they have made the top and bottom bezel a hair smaller compared to the Galaxy Nexus, the sides are definitely not edge to edge, looks no different really.

-Same 8MP camera as S2. From the information I've read they are using the same exact camera as the S2 just with software improvements. While the S2 camera isn't bad, I'm pretty shocked they didn't upgrade the sensor at all on the new flagship.

The S3 will still sell, but overall it's a major disappointment IMO.

I don't think it's reasonable to be disappointed because the phone didn't live up to the fake rumors.

BGR will report pretty much anything anyone tells them it seems. You should have seen all the crap they were telling us the "iPhone 5" was going to be.

- The display is still pentile. But Anandtech said it looks like a better display than the Galaxy Nexus has, despite both being Super AMOLED. Galaxy Nexus already looks pretty good and I don't notice the pentile effect with my eye. Sounds like he doesn't think it's quite up to the same quality of the HTC One X, but it should still be pretty nice.

- Plastic body shouldn't be a surprise. It's Samsung. Again rumors said all kinds of things. But a review says they put a coating on it that should help protect against scratches.

- 2100 mAh battery in the GSM model. That should be plenty. I would imagine Samsung might go with a larger battery with the LTE model later in June.

- I really didn't think we'd be seeing a bezelless phone, that was just a silly rumor. This bezel looks pretty thin. I'm a bit worried about having no bezel causing issues when holding the phone anyway.

- I didn't really pay attention to the talk about the camera since pretty much any camera these days is good enough for what I do.

 

[jdot104]

I think for the most part, Samsung got the internals right. But the design is a major decision point to me. With the One X, I can work around the storage. I can't work around the generic design of the GS3. I don't know if I'd call it ugly but it's a no brainer in comparison to the One X's design.

 

[Droid800]

According to you. Design is purely subjective. I'm glad we have choices like we do.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

Design is most definitely NOT purely subjective. There is good design and there is bad design. This falls in the middle. Its a mediocre update to the SII, and looks totally anonymous in a sea of Android handsets.

With the One X being such a fantastic design and using such good materials, Samsung needed to make sure the SIII was a grand slam. This barely moves the needle.

 

[kinster02]

Disappointed, no, more like expected, it looks like ever other cheap shiny plastic Samsung phone.

 

[anon(42011)]

Samsung dropped the ball... HTC totally murdered them design wise. The specs don't mean much with that horrible cheap looking phone.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[rovex]

Design is most definitely NOT purely subjective. There is good design and there is bad design. This falls in the middle. Its a mediocre update to the SII, and looks totally anonymous in a sea of Android handsets.

With the One X being such a fantastic design and using such good materials, Samsung needed to make sure the SIII was a grand slam. This barely moves the needle.

Not quite. Bad design is usually bad because it has functionality issues. This has no functionality issues, but its not especially attractive to most peoples eyes.

 

[Droid800]

Not quite. Bad design is usually bad because it has functionality issues. This has no functionality issues, but its not especially attractive to most peoples eyes.

That's just not true. It doesn't have to have functionality issues to be a bad design. This is a bad design because it is a step backwards from its predecessor, and it undoes all of the positive changes that the SII brought. (textured hyperskin battery cover for example)