Re: Verizon Galaxy S III First Impressions/Reviews
This may be a little late or redundant, but for what it's worth:
Former Samsung Fascinate user here (one of the old Galaxy S variants). Received Verizon Galaxy S3 white 32gb (SCH-i500) last Monday, but held off until they arrived in the Verizon stores today for a quick hands-on before opening the box at home. Having been told on the phone my local store finally got them, dashed over (with my Fascinate) to take a look.
Want the good or bad news first? Will start off with the good (there's more good than bad):
As advertised, the unit looks actually elegant and was silky smooth in operation, great display responsiveness, really a joy to navigate thru. Going from 3G to 4G LTE was a miracle in itself-- made surfing the web actually useful on one of these things. Has to be at least 10 times as fast, maybe 15x more than the Fascinate's 3G, challenges even my 25/25 Fios internet at home in smoothness and quickness. Sharpness-wise, since the Fascinate has 800x400 resolution, the 1280x720 on the S3 was considerably sharper, but not quite as sharp as i thought it might be. My glasses are tweaked for reading really tiny print, so was probably knocking on the "visible pixels" level of viewing. Again, overall pretty good. The Fascinate had Gingerbread, so ICS was a nice stepup. Bought a $3 USB OTG cable on the internet, and was pleased to find out it works! But don't expect your S3 to power a small external portable hard drive--it needs its own source (at least mine did). Even a 3TB drive works just fine with its own power source. Flash drives also worked fine with no additional power. The cam seems really good too (big step-up in sharpness, realism and performance on both still shots and video--smooth and unbelievably versatile features). Battery with heavy use held up quite well-20 or so percent used over 2 or so hours. GPS with Google Maps is the most sensitive ever seen--locks on in seconds not minutes, usually even works indoors! Oh yeah, the back panel that some have complained is flimsy and thin--works fine for me, and would much rather have it since it allows easy access to memory and battery inside the unit. It's very similar to the Fascinate's, which held up just fine over almost 2 years, and that was after opening numerous times. On a "drop test" the back might detach/come off (haven't done it yet), but it's the screen that counts. After daughter drop-smashed her iPhone screen recently, and me dropping the Fascinate at least twice (once on concrete), will let you guess who made out better. Here's to gorilla glass.
So the bad part: the brightness (actually, screen in general) is indeed slightly weak. Comparing side by side with the Fascinate, both at FULL brightness, just no if's and's or but's about it, the two-year-old Fascinate is brighter. Not by much, but it is noticeable--a disappointment to be sure. (Actually compared to TWO S3's on display; both outdone.) Was then worried whether the S3 would be a washout in direct sunlight. Answer--doesn't seem to be. It is luckily still viewable, but the squint factor/eyestrain when outdoors is likely more with the S3. Bottom line: the S3 has no reserve screen power for strong light environments. This limitation imho would guess is maybe intentional-- part of a battery/screen conservation or heat reduction scheme; in other words, it may be that no rooting, new ROM, nor future update is going to make it any brighter. (C'mon, Samsung, don't skimp on the screen performance on an otherwise superior product!) Don't get me wrong--the screen looks lovely--indoors. During a video-movie test the colors were good, tho possibly lacking a little punch that the Fascinate had (when outdoors in bright sunlight neither is very enjoyable to watch). And I agree the auto-bright feature is useless. Some developer no doubt with super low-light vision screwed up setting it ridiculously dark. It forces you to leave it in manual and look for a utility that allows instant adjustment (fortunately there are some out there). But this SHOULD be fixed by an update. A user-selectable low, medium, or high auto brightness would really be cool. Also, my headset seems to pick up an intermittent hum from the device when it's plugged into AC (may have to look into that).
So, nothing's perfect. But could certainly do a lot worse than the S3 (especially of all things the iPhone--how so many Verizon customers were willing to pay megabucks to get an iPhone with 3G, puny 3.5" screen, no upgradeable memory nor removable battery to mention a few, never ceases to amaze...). But facing the "act-now-to-grandfather-unlimited-data" situation, was really pushed into this upgrade. But glad i did, especially for its velvety smoothness, top notch camera/gps and speedy internet--so cool to have a fast connection in many on-the-go places.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram