I love my GS3, but its not perfect! July 13, 2012

Reviewer:  LoveMyToys  (Long Island, NY) -

The GS3's sexy specs and glossy good looks (particularly in pebble blue) won me over. On launch day, I swapped my beloved Droid Razr Maxx, for the Samsung Galaxy S3. Prior to the Maxx, I briefly owned the Verizon version of the GNexus (which I can't recommend at all). Before I get into the nitty gritty details, with pro's, con's and comparisons, at the time of this review, this is the phone you have been waiting for--the phone that will make you use that upgrade or cause you to sign a ridiculous contract with Verizon. After spending ten minutes with the phone, it's an obvious step up from the Razr Maxx and Galaxy Nexus--the former top tier Android phones on Big Red's network.

Performance

As much as I loved my Razr Maxx (and its marathon 2-3 solid days of battery life), after spending a few minutes with the GS3, the performance leap is very noticeable. The GS3 is silky smooth, with no lagginess at all. Apps (particulary heavy duty games like GTA III) launch quickly and are game play is flawless. I know many of you aren't going to play anything requiring more than the occasional fling of a few angry birds, but the GS3's ability to handle hardcore mobile games with ease is a sure fire indicator that it will be able to run 99.9% of the apps out there in two years. In other words, this phone has the chops to allow you to make it through your contract without starting a countdown for your next upgrade.

How about some real world examples of the GS3's muscle? The Qualcomm S4 chipset with an industry leading 2gb of Ram can cut through 1080p video files like butter. Surprisingly, it was able to play back a 23.5 mbps AVCHD file using hardware decoding decoding!!! I was even able to take play back the file with the video in screen, while I did a couple of google searches. The average $400 laptop would have a tough time handling that!

The GS3 doesn't disappoint on the audio side either. While HTC touts its Beats Audio Technology, that's nothing more than a brand name equilizer setting with limited value-- unless you're spend $100 or more on a beats headphones (which I personally don't care for). Sammy, on the other hand, dropped in two Wolfson digital to analog converters, which allows the GS3 to pump out lossless high bit rate music with ease. Using a pair of Etyotic HF3 IEM earphones, sound quality was crisp and clean for music playback. Even lossy tracks streaming from Amazon Cloud sounded surprisingly full. Much more so than on some other phones that I own. In terms of music playback, the GS3 is every bit the equal of the iPhone and possibly a little better.

The Screen

The's GS3's 4.8", 720p HD screen is a stunner! The Super AMOLED panel provides rich color saturation and outstanding contrast. The panel used to make the screen is beautifully fabricated. the slight curve in the design makes it a pleasure to touch. Text is crisp and I see no issue with this most recent implementation of pentile technology. The fuzziness from Galaxy S, GNexus and Fascinate is a thing of the past. Watching videos on the GS3 is a treat.

All is, however, not perfect with the GSIII's screen. While the contrast and color saturation are strong points for the phone, if you like natural color tones, the pumped up saturation levels may bother you. Personally, I would dial back the saturation level if I could. The GS2 had a settings menu that allowed users to tweak brightness, contrast, tint and saturation. For reasons I don't understand, that great feature was some how left behind on this next gen phone, which is a real pity.

While saturation is a matter of taste, the real issue with the screen though is brightness. Even cranked to 100%, the screen still seems to be a few nits behind the curve. I would love to be able to dial up to 120%. The maximum brightness is noticeably less bright than the screen on the Maxx (which Motorola sourced from Sammy). So, what gives? I am not sure, but my best guess is that in the interest of improving battery life and to compensate for the size of the screen (and the power that size screen will suck), Sammy choose to put a software restriction that limits the ability of users to pump of the brightness. Hopefully, this can be cured by a future firmware update.

While the brightness could use a boost, this deficiency is further amplified by awful auto-brightness implementation. When auto-brightness is turned on, the phone makes sudden and drastic adjustments in brightness even in a consistently well lit setting. It seems as if the software has only 3 settings for brightness when it is set to auto--low, medium and high (which isn't that high to begin with). The phone will drop from high to low suddenly, leaving the screen unreadably dark. Until Sammy sends out a software update to fix the problem, I have disabled the auto-brightness feature.

Software Implementation

The user interface for this latest version of touchwiz is really very nice. This phone provides IOS levels of comfort and ease of use to a smartphone beginner, but allows the flexibility for the nerds among us to customize the phone to suit our needs and tastes. CNET and Phonedog have done excellent video reviews on the GS3's user interface and software features and highly recommend that you check them out (Amazon won't allow links to outside sites--so you'll have to google them).

I do have a few software gripes, one of which could effect some peoples' buying decision.
One of the purported advantages of the GS3 over its top competitors from the HTC One line of phones is the fact that the GS3's has a micro SD card slot and accepts up to 64gb cards. Android allows must apps to be saved and launched from the micro SD cards. This feature allows low and mid-range phones to be made with limited internal storage because users can add their own cards.

Sammy, however, wants power users to buy the bigger capacity 32gig phones for an extra $50. To force us to buy the step up model, Samsung disable the ability to move apps from internal storage to the micro SD card. I am not sure of the size of the app partition in the phone, but I hope Sammy didn't put too big of a restriction on internal storage or that could be a problem for some people down the road. I understand why Sammy made the decision to disable the feature, but it seems like a low rent Apple type move to me and, in fairness, the HTC One series doesn't accept SD cards at all (nor does the iPhone nor any of the current Windows 7 phones).

Another small grip I have is with Sammy's decision not to incorporate ICS's native ability to generate folders for apps simply by stacking one app icon on top of another . Motorola incorporated this feature on its ICS update to the Razr and its native to ICS, so why force us to have to press the menu screen, select create folder and than drag and drop files? Sammy, that's very Gingerbread of you. A good UI should use the strengths of the underlying Software and improve on the weakness--not just make changes for change sake. This is one of the few areas that the Sammy's "Nature" UI seems to fall short.

Battery Life

Gripes are over for now. :) The batter life on the GS3 seems pretty decent. I have had it off the charge since 8:30 this morning (its 4:47 in the afternoon), and have been using the phone heavily. Screen on time is about 2:53 minutes. I have done some light web surfing--shopped on ebay and amazon for a new case for the sammy. Send about 7 or 8 emails, 10-12 tests, and made about 80 minutes worth of phone calls. Brightness is set to around 90% (auto-brightness is disabled). I even played about 15 to 20 minutes of GTA III, and watch about 20 minutes of an episode of Lost on Netflix. It's now 6:33 in the evening and the battery says it has 62% remaining. I would still be in the mid-80's with the Razr Maxx and the GNexus would have been dead or on the charger a few hours ago.

I would say the battery is good--but it's not close to being in the same league as the Maxx. The fact that it is removable, however, does give it a major step up on phones like the HTC One (X-S), Razr (original), Sony ION, iPhone 4S and Atrix HD. In short, if you are on Verizon and don't need the Maxx's 2 full days worth of battery life, I would take the GS3 over the Razr Maxx (which is exactly what I did). [Edited 7/26/12: I ordered two 2300mah batteries with a wall charge from QCell for $24.00 from Amazon last week. These batteries performed as good or better than OEM and had NFC capabilities. This eliminated the need for a huge internal battery from my perspective, although there are plenty of 3500 and 4000mah extended batteries available for the GS3. If you're coming from anything other than a flip phone or Razr Maxx, you will have no complaints about the battery life--This phone absolutely smokes my old iPhone 4 in terms of battery life).

Camera

The camera on the GS3 gets top marks. It uses an updated version of the same 8MP Sony sensor used in the iPhone 4S. Unlike the iPhone 4S, there are options galore for tweaking your photos. I am really impressed with the sharpness of the phones, even in low light. Depending on the shot, the camera on the GS3 (and photo quality in general) is very comparable to photo quality on the Nokia 808 and iPhone 4S.

Video quality is on par with the photo quality. It shoots very smooth 1080p video. Color is good and the video quality is genuine HD quality for most shots. If you shooting a sporting events or other fast paced action, or are pan quickly, there is a lag in time while the camera gets in focus. In fairness, I see the same issue with the iPhone 4S and I have yet to see a smart phone camera do better. Audio quality on the camera is also quite good.

Call Quality and Reception

I have had no problems with reception at all. Unlike its GNexus stable mate, the qualcomm radio and baseband in the GS3 are top notch. I have excellent signal strength on Verizon's network. Call quality is excellent. The people I called say that I sound like I am on a landline--and they sound just as clear to me. Data on Verizon's 4G LTE Network is also strong. I located in the metro NY area. I am consistently pulling 18-24mbps download and 9-16mbps upload speeds on the 4G Network. I get strong reception for Wifi and great broadcasting for Bluetooth as well.

Comparison with Competitors

I have no regrets about trading up from the GNexus to the Razr Maxx and even less regret about trading from the Maxx to the GS3. Despite its plastic build, I think the phone does have a premium feel. It's not as solid as the Maxx, but no one is going to look at the pebble blue version of the GS3 and thinks--that thing looks cheap. It's comfortable to hold. The HTC One X has a sharper, brighter screen and a camera that is on par with the GSC's. The lack of a user removable battery is a big knock against the HTC One series however. The iPhone is, well, an iPhone. As nice as the iPhone 4S may be (and it's great phone), the lack of LTE capability and low data rates on Verizon's CDMA network make it a no go for me. On ATT, however, it can take advantage of higher HSPA+ speeds, but ATT's network has been having some issues lately. For that reason alone, if I am married to ATT or am on Sprint or Verizon for that matter, I am taking the GS3 over the iPhone 4S.

Conclusion

This is a solid phone and a no brainer if you are on the market for a phone right now and have $200.00 in your pocket!

DONT read the one-star reviews, those people are just moping about a dumb issue...I'll explain. August 2, 2012

Reviewer:  Brian Rokosz 

The Galaxy S3 is a 4.0.3 Android ICS 4.8" AMOLEDHD 720P 2GB of RAM, fantastic device.

The features that this phone has are top-tier and the gesture control (while gimmicky) is amazing to show off. I still keep a few on cuz they come in handy.

The device is also incredible fast and smooth, and the screen looks perfect. People will complain that this has a PENTILE display, which has faced very harsh reviews on other phones. However, due to the high-resolution display there are so many pixels that the PENTILE isn't noticable at all. The saturation really adds to the screen and all of the colors pop.

The quickness is partially due to Verizon, but mostly due to the S4 processor inside which easily matches the Tegra 3 quad-cores in tablets and the overseas version of this.

In short, for $200 you won't find a better new phone. The speaker on the back is loud, the sound is amazing, the earbuds this comes with are actually pretty good, the processing power is phenominal.

The camera is also the best of any phone...its essentially the iPhone 4S's camera...that Samsung made for them...but tweaked to use more cool features.

The front camera works wonders with Tango and Google+...both are Android/Google's "Facetime" and work with anyone who has a front camera, unlike Facetime, which requires iOS.

The people that give this bad reviews are doing so because of Verizon, not the phone itself. Verizon decided to opt out of a lot of things that people want this phone for:

1) NFC...payments made from the phone using a wireless connection and Google Wallet were switched off by Verizon, all other carriers get it.

2)Dropbox--a cloud based storage system. This phone comes with 50GB of dropbox storage...25GB on some carriers...Verizon's gets 0GB

3) The bootloader, or way to easily root the device and get inside to tweak everything about the device (what Android is best for since everything is open-source) is locked and encrypted...Verizon is the only one refusing to open it.

4) Onboard apps--Verizon's tools like backup wifi detection always turn on and interupt what I'm doing. In fact, when opening ANY app that uses data, Verizon has a big pop up that asks you to switch to an open wifi so you dont use their data...you have to physically hit the "no" every single time...even when checking facebook you have to. It's sooooo anoying.

So, in summary, this is the best phone in the world..no exaggeration, literally every website, including Mac World, rave about this thing...Verizon's version is severly limited due to them being greedy, arrogant, idiotic...well you get the idea.

If you want easy access to rooting, hacking(which is encouraged with android devices...google even awards people who hack into their devices to improve them...the Nexus Q being the best example...during the reveal of the device at their conference they stopped to tell people how hackable it is)...get the Galaxy Nexus or wait until this Christmas when the next "Nexus" device is out. I for one, was just tired of waiting and this device was the last one to allow me my unlimited data.

If you have questions, ask.

Great phone, 5* despite nitpicks July 16, 2012

Reviewer:  davepy  (Novi, MI United States) -

This review is for the 16GB, blue, Verizon S3.

Owned for 5 days now, and played with extensively, but not rooted. Fantastic upgrade from my Droid X. ICS by itself is worth the price ($199 from the Verizon store, btw). Hardware seems plenty fast despite not being the quad-core international version. 16 GB + a 32 GB sd card gives me plenty of storage. 4G LTE is blazing fast at my location (SE Michigan).

ICS, how do I love thee? I can finally disable all the annoying Verizon (& Samsung) apps w/o rooting (though you need to root to fully uninstall them). Multitasking is greatly improved (hint: long-press home button). Stock apps are almost good enough to stick with (almost, not quite, esp. the keyboard & browser).

Hardware: good camera, fantastic AMOLED display. Pentile, sure, but can you really tell? HD movies look gorgeous and play smoothly. Decent speaker for speakerphone or listening to podcasts. The display is huge, and the phone is a bit big for one-handed operations, but it's also thin and fits in your pocket no problem. Oh, and it looks great. Almost a shame to put a case on it.

Good battery life. I've been going a full day on a single charge with medium-heavy usage with plenty to spare. Not watching movies or anything that requires the LCD to be on for hours at a time, obviously, but for most usage, you should be fine just plugging in at night.

Nitpicks:

Major 1 - Power button placement on the right, usb port on the bottom. I'm hitting the volume keys on the left far too often when turning on/off the phone. Could just be personal preference as I'm used to the power button on top on the Droid. USB port on the bottom makes no sense though.

Major 2 - No MSC (Mass Storage Control) transfer, only MTP & PTP. Less flexibility in dragging & dropping files, folders, etc from your computer. Sure, there are ways around this, but is annoying nonetheless.

Minor - so, yeah, big display, and if you have small-ish hands, 1-handed operations are risky, esp w/the somewhat slippery case. I don't actually mind the plastic construction--doesn't feel "cheap" to me at all--but I'll likely get a TPU case for the grippiness.

Shortcuts on your lockscreen is a great feature! Except you have to unlock the phone to actually launch the apps. Why can't I turn on my flashlight or calculator (zero security risks) on demand? No ring/vibrate switch from the lockscreen either.

Anyway, plenty of software nits that can be fixed by downloading replacement apps or rooting. Really, it's the MSC & power button that might tempt me to leave the G3 a 4* review, but honestly, I just love the phone to death right now, which is kind of the bottom line. Maybe it was just the degree of upgrade after 2 years, but whatever, it's a fantastic phone that I was happy to pay full price for at launch, instead of waiting a month or two for it to get discounted.

Edit: 7/26. Added thoughts after 2 weeks of ownership and experience of travel (air & driving) with the phone (because this review wasn't long enough!).

Pro - GPS locks very quickly. The DX took a long time to lock onto GPS signals, but the SG3 is almost instantaneous when outdoors (or inside of a car that is outdoors). Gets rid of a huge peeve for my previous phone.

Pro - Camera features work well, esp. the Best Shot mode. Took some very nice pictures at a wedding.

Con - Button placement redux (see Major 1 above). I asked many people to take pictures for me, and they invariably hit the volume button by accident which operates the digital zoom. Very natural to place your left thumb there in landscape mode. A good case might alleviate this.

Semi-con - This is 100% on me, but don't get too cocky about the Gorilla Glass 2. I managed to scratch it a tiny bit in the 2 weeks thinking it was invincible, and it's not. Keys & coins may be fine, but rough kitchen surfaces are not (granite, sandstone, etc). Buy a protector.

Skeptical - at first August 22, 2012

Reviewer:  D. Peterson "Rogue" 

I really was not liking the options with the SGIII at first. Let me enumerate this a bit for you.

1. The automatic WiFi pop-up was a little tough to swallow. In case you haven't heard, even with the WiFi turned completely off and having gone through the advanced options to make sure it doesn't come on, it actually is still on and scanning. If you've attached to a wireless network in the past, it remembers that connection and pops-up a dialog asking if you want to connect to it to save on your 4G data usage. Super annoying at first. But then I thought why wouldn't I want it to connect. Generally speaking, it's going to be just as fast (maybe faster if you've connected to an N router) so let it auto-connect. Saves on battery and it is fairly seamless. I just wouldn't connect it to a coffee shop network. Stick to the 4G for that.

2. You can't download/install/move applications to your SD card. It all goes to the on-board system memory. To some, myself included, this is a problem. If I have an application on my phone and it goes bad, I want to be assured that the data is still retrievable on the SD card. Luckily, most of my applications have an auto backup feature. If my phone does die I don't have to worry a great deal. It's being backed up on-the-fly. Default your music and photos to be stored on the SD card and you're golden. Those are the big space-wasters anyway. Still, you should consider the pros and cons of the 16GB vs the 32GB GSIII.

3. OK, it's a petty complaint, but this whole white cell phone thing that Apple started is dumb. The only other option is the "Pebble Blue", which is really an odd shade of purple. I dislike white and I don't want a blue phone. I figured a case would solve most of that. I know, I know... it's a dumb complaint, but I like my black and gun metal gray. *shrug*

4. The camera is really nice! The bad part is that there are no built-in features for editing your photos save an option to crop. This is still a thorn in my side, but if I must download yet another app, I suppose I will.

5. I was skeptical on the battery size and usage time. My Droid X (after customizations) would get about 12-14 hours on a single charge. That's going easy on texts, emails, browsing the web and Bluetooth usage. None-the-less, it was a decent amount of time for the 2nd-ish generation of Android smart phones. Especially when you compare it to the paperweight HTC Incredible. Happily the SGIII battery stands up to many hours of Bluetooth, texting, browsing and what-not with the same 12-14 hours. So I have really gained a considerable amount of usage time with the SGIII over the "X."

6. There is no skepticism on this one; the screen is a-mazing! It truly blows me away every time I look at a picture or video.

I've had the SGIII for one week and had zero issues with it. I would fall in love with my Droid X twice a week. Leaving behind all I had come to know and love about the "X" was tough. I've come to the understanding that comparing the tech in the SGIII with your outdated phone is night and day. Yes, you may like some of the features of your old phones' capability, but all-in-all you're going to really like the SGIII. Keep an open mind about it.

Parenthetically, to those that are comparing this to the iPhone - stop. You either like apples or robots. If the iPhone works better for you, go get one and stop the bias commentary.

Best phone on the market! August 12, 2012

Reviewer:  R. B. Ray "Rus Ray"  (San Diego, CA) -

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is without a doubt the best phone for ME. Before you purchase this phone I urge you to really think about your needs, and stack them against this review. This review is based on an unrooted phone on Verizon Wireless. If you don't feel like reading all of the specifics, skip down to the end and just check out the pros and cons.

Feel/Design
The body of the Verizon Galaxy S3 is very smooth and fits well in your hand; it is a plastic build which allows the phone to remain light. I personally am terrified of dropping it due to the case. I purchased a silicone case just to keep the back scratch free and provide a little cushion in case dropped. The power button is located on the right side of the phone near the top, and a volume rocker is located on the left side near the top. There is a home button on the front of the screen near the bottom on the center. Very simple. One small complaint is the battery cover: you have to somewhat pry it off starting with a little slip on top center of the phone. Directly left of that is the headphone input. Another disappointment to me is the way the speaker is placed; it's on the rear of the phone and if you have the phone on a flat table, it muffles the sound from the speaker.

Screen
You're going to be working with a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD display. It's an amazing display. Much more bright than my wife's iPhone 4S. It seems to have a more crisp look. If you aren't used to a large screen, the S3 will take a little getting used to. Coming from an original Motorola Droid, I was a little offput by the large size of this phone. In the month that I've had it I've gotten so used to it that now when I pick up my iPod touch, my immediate reaction is, "why did they design this screen so small?" It is also worth noting that the screen is made from Gorilla Glass 2

Performance
1.5 GHz S4 processor and 2GB of RAM? Yes please. I have never had so much as a hiccup with this phone, despite running as many memory intensive programs and games as I can. The home screens run smoothly even using Go Launcher as a home replacement. I haven't found a thing that my S3 can't run flawlessly.

Connectivity (Signal Strength)
I'm currently in San Diego, CA. The only time I do not get 4G is when I'm on the island of Coronado, and even then it just cuts in and out. Everywhere else I have been in San Diego, I get exceptional service. Doing a speed test, I routinely get around 12 Mbps; that is as fast as my home internet connection.

Battery Life
2100 mAh battery. Doing a looped video test, I can squeeze about 9 hours 15 minutes out of my phone. The only time my battery life isn't wonderful is when the phone is maxed out searching for signal on Coronado. Moderate use: playing games, making calls, using Tapatalk, checking my Google+, Twitter, Flipboard, and reading other news articles, I can usually get a good 16 hours of battery life.

OS
I could write several pages just on how much better ICS is than any other Android build I've used, but I'm going to leave it to you to research this. The ability to customize my phone is invaluable to me, which is why I always choose Android over Apple.

Camera
8-megapixel rear camera, 1.9-megapixel front camera. One of the biggest reasons I wanted a phone upgrade was the camera. The Motorola Droid camera was so slow that it made capturing unique moments nearly impossible. The speed on the S3 camera is stellar. The dual-core cpu does a great job at giving great speed and performance with virtually no lag. The quality of the pictures is also fantastic. My S3 outperforms my wife's iPhone 4S in picture quality by far.

Gimmicks
S Voice - The microphone picks up too much ambient noise, especially when driving. When in quiet places, I generally have a pretty good success rate when using S Voice, but I'm really hoping when Jellybean gets pushed to the S3 that Google Now will really pick up the slack.
Pop Up Play - I've never used it, as I see no practical use in it.
Share Shot - would be a great feature if the only phone in the world was the S3

Pros
Beautiful screen
Gorilla Glass 2
Smooth running OS
Speedy, high quality camera
4G
Robust customization options
Fast GPS lock (I didn't mention this in the review, but the GPS lock on this phone is incredibly fast)

Cons
Locked Bootloader (Verizon only)
No Google Wallet (such a horrible move on Verizon's part)
Battery cover hard to remove (minor complaint but still worth noting especially if you ever need to change your battery)
Speaker placement

Conclusion: You would be a wise man indeed to purchase a Samsung Galaxy S3. The only reason to not buy an S3 is if you're an Apple Fanboy.

Long on features, short on reliability October 9, 2012

Reviewer:  PS  (New York) -

I have owned the phone for about a month now. Has many nice features but there is always a 10% chance that something (mainly mobile data/GPS) wont work right away. Dont know how much of this is a Verizon model specific issue.
Pros
1. The display - generally great with some over-saturation of colors. If you have average sized hands (for a man), then the phone isnt too big to handle. It is actually quite sleek and light and would also fit easily into trouser pockets. The large screen you get in return is totally worth it - makes reading, watching clips etc much more enjoyable. I have barely used my ipad since and would now be hard to go to a phone with a smaller screen.
2. Respectable battery life. Can get about 20 hours on a single charge, doing primarily email, browsing and a few calls using supplied battery.
3. Camera is solid.
4. Some nice new features (Smart Stay - works about 75% of time but is still pretty nifty). Kies air - sync your phone over Wifi.
5. Seamless switching between Wifi and Mobile Data.
6. Fast.
7. Great music and sound quality.
8. SD Card expandable. Easy to find replacement/extended batteries.
9. T9 trace/swype works well.
Cons
1. Weaker Reception - When on 3G, data speed is slower than my 3G - HTC . Also often fails to receive 3G data signal when a Blackberry and the HTC also on Verizon seem to manage okay.
2. Lousy 3G-4G transition - Often indicates to be on 4G but then fails miserably when a data request is made. Takes over a minute to switch to 3G. From time to time, gets stuck in 3G and wouldnt switch to 4G even if you go to a strong 4G area. Nothing short of a wholesale restart would make it go to 4G. Dont know how much of this is a Verizon issue. I have changed SIM cards once, but the problem recurred.
3. Can get uncomfortably warm.
4. Interface - This is mixed. Some elements (quick access pull-down bar, ability to hide bloatware, shortcuts) are handy, others poorly thought of. Given the large form-factor, a soft home button would have been much better than the physical one. Also the default setting is for a double tap home to launch S-Voice. This leads to a pretty slow response time if you just need to single tap to go to home screen. It is a setting easy to change, but illustrates that usability wasnt always thought through in designing the interface. The stock dialer is also lacking.
5. GPS is generally very slow to lock. Often requires launching test/daignostics apps.
6. Verizon bloatware are a power hog. Need to kill them manually from task manager whenever you restart.

Pure Excellence August 30, 2012

Reviewer:  Mack Gearhardt 

Im really not one to write reviews. I got this phone from amazon over two weeks ago.

Arrival:It arrived within just 2 days.

Aesthetic: It looks really amazing the stupid picture on amazon doesn't do it justice at all.

Performance: omg wow. I can't believe we've made it this far in engineering (even with all the obstacles retarding our way like patents and copy 'rights'). This phone performs basically as fast as my computer and even has a task manager lol. Multitasking is superb as well; you can call and search the web or listen to your navigation while ur on the phone...ridiculous!

Voice Interface: I'd estimate like a 96-98% accuracy of the Google voice search (which is EXTREMELY high and crushes "siri" any day). The S-Voice function is also really good but it's slow so I use the google one.

Web: Searching the web is faster than my cable company and its super fast as mentioned. No need to write anything else.

Entertainment: Freaking awesome for music, movies, seriously anything. You can arrange your songs/movies according to folders or anything else you like..

Picture/camera: awesome organization, can be according to faces, dates, anything really...Superb quality..really the best and easiest camera to work with by far. The fact that u can so easily switch between recording and picture taking is so awesome.

Security: you can set it at whatever level of security you want: pins, face recognition, voice recognition, etc...

Apps: it has any app you can possible want like recording phone calls, changing your voice, recording class lecture, games, academics...etc. and installations are faster than any other phone i promise (including iphone for sure)

Other notes: (I had the Galaxy Sii and i hated it. This phone with small tweaks which make a huge difference has really become a new phone)

I really love this phone..i hope you find my review useful cause i spent time to write it for you people that are deciding ...best of success to you in choosing.

Best Android Phone To Date July 14, 2012

Reviewer:  Nathan Stainbrook  (AUSTIN, INDIANA, US) -

This is IMO the best android phone to date. It has a few minor bugs that could easily be ironed out with a update from the manufacturer. I will suggest one thing to do to make this phone run to its fullest potential, get rid of touchwiz by using either the Apex Launcher, or NovaLauncher. Those two launchers are specifically made for the current version of android (ICS). Do not use GO Launcher. Now for the list of things that make this phone the best android phone to date.

The S4 processor with two gigs of ram.
The Large 4.8 inch screen, which more than holds it own against all comers.
The Camera is the best camera you can get on a phone right now bar none.
The Battery life is the best on a smartphone outside of the Maxx, one suggestion would be to limit your background processes by going into developer options and change how many background processes your phone will allow.
The Gesture controls are a very nice touch.
The form factor is very sleek and sexy.

Now for a list of things I don't like quite as much.

The power button seems a bit flimsy to me, makes me wonder how it will hold up for two years.
The signal is not quite as good as it should be for a phone made in 2012, but it is still very solid nonetheless. I get better signal than I did on my Nexus.
Touchwiz is a bit clunky; but as I mentioned above that can be easily remedied by using Apex or Nova.

Overall, I would recommend this phone to ANYONE. I have had a lot of Android phones over the last few years, and this is far and away the best I've ever had.

Best Phone I've Ever Owned July 19, 2012

Reviewer:  J. fox 

I used to work for Verizon, and I've tested a lot of phones. This is hands down the fastest, smoothest phone I've seen. With a dual core (US) 1.5 GHz processor, and 2 gigs (US) of RAM this thing will be future proof for the next two years that you own it. It's also capable of 4G LTE speeds so the internet is blazing fast as well.
Most of my friends have iphones, and they were envious of the looks/screen on this phone. It certainly is a looker, and the weight/feel to it is deceiving. With such a large phone you'd expect it to be heavy, but somehow Samsung made this phone light, thin and airy. Some say it feels cheap, but I don't get that at all. In fact it seems well built, but like most phones I would not want to drop it without a case.
The 1080p video camera is a nice feature too, and the videos looks great! I have a Samsung TV so I can send them wirelessly from the phone to the TV. The camera is sweet too, and I like having burst mode.
Oh, and its a phone too, and the calls are clear on both ends. This is a must have phone if you are looking to upgrade. Don't hesistate!

This phone is GREAT August 14, 2012

Reviewer:  ubtoo 

I've had this phone for over a month now.. month and few weeks maybe. I'm really loving this phone even though few little things that bug me. I got my phone from eBay brand new, I got the 32GB pebble blue on Verizon. Phone is really great and I think probably the best outta smartphones I've had.. had about 6-7 so far.

Battery on this phone is probably best I've experienced with this phone here. I know you could always do things to get better battery than I've been having, I personally don't care to root this yet or do any of the tweaks. I can work this phone hard, I mean constant youtube videos, some games, taking pictures, making some phone calls and stuff, and doing some e-mails (4 email accounts).. even though I don't sync but 6 minutes on every hour. I get about 7 or so hours and still at %50 battery, give or take. My other phones would be about dead just about, I'd be hurrying to charge a spare up after 8 or 9 hours.

I really love the slick design of the phone.. some people say very cheap feeling or quality but I feel complete opposite and they are probably idiots anyways. I have several very nice cases and screen protector on this baby.. have a glass tempered one and loving it, feel I have that protection in case a drop (let's hope not).

Only thing at this point I don't really like with phone so far is when I open one of my folders or close, I have the ladys voice- Folder open/Folder closed.. This bugs the crap out of me. I checked all settings and just don't see how to stop this, anyone know?

all and all this phone is a very great phone and I'd recommend to people out there. Then again everyone is different and we all don't have the same luck with our electronic gadgets or all want something else. Personally I'm very happy and think this phone is top of the line :).

Great phone but still no JB, Verizon! December 3, 2012

Reviewer:  Thomas Wooldridge  (Round Rock,Texas United States) -

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is a great phone. It has so many wonderful features and is thin and curvy. I love my phone and only have 2 gripes:

1. Verizon is being ridiculously negligent in upgrading the world's best selling phone to Android Jelly Bean and insults it's customers by not even hinting when the upgrade might be available.
2. It uses a dual core processor in the US version while offering a quad core everywhere else in the world.

Lovely phone, But Verizon should keeps its butt out of my phone, and stick with just providing me cell service. September 23, 2012

Reviewer:  Kevin "Kev"  (California) -

I use to be a huge Motorola fan, but after having this phone for almost 2 months now, I know know that I have been missing out.

Love the phone overall. Read that some people had some "No-Sim Card" error. Only had this issue once, when i accidentally hit the sim card when I was changing the SD card out.
Just recently Samsung came out with an update that "fixed" this problem.

The cons that I have with this phone is that VERIZON got rid of the 50 GB dropbox offer for this phone, AND that Google wallet app is blocked by VERIZON.

I have to note that Verizon is coming out with a phone payment system of their own, so I guess that's understandable for them to block competition.

Another con is that the notification light for text messages stays lit a solid white/blue color till you acknowledge the new message.

Other than those cons, I have to say that this phone is the best I have ever had.

ONE RECOMMENDATION/COOL FEATURE: Is that using a cheap accessory (Micro USB Host *female*) you can attach a :Keyboard, mouse, even attach a thumb drive to your phone.

The accessory I found to work for me is called "eForCity Micro USB OTG to USB 2.0 Adapter" It's $0.82 with free shipping, sold on amazon from Generic. It took a couple weeks to be mailed from China, but it's a cool adapter to have in my opinion.

Hope this review helps out :)

Great Phone December 4, 2012

Reviewer:  shadez82 

I was a little discouraged about getting a phone this big but after purchasing it. i love this phone! it took some time getting used to but i found it a lot easier to multitask and had a lot more features then most phones. Although samsung has not updated the firmware often the os alone is already good to use. If you're looking for a good phone with a decent screen size i would recommend the s3. if you want bigger then you can always get the note 2. Although i was a little disappointed by the touching phones transfer. i actually takes a lot longer then i would have expected compared to the commercials and the battery life can be drained fairly quickly. Overall i do like this phone.

Pleased so far November 29, 2012

Reviewer:  fabphil 

This phone is amazing. great picture, easy to use and automatically downloaded the aps i had on my other phone! The price was insanely cheap, and much lower than at verizon wireless. the reason for 4 stars you ask? first, the charger plug in is on the bottom. which makes it hard using a car charger in a cradle. and secondly, and the biggest one, the placement of the buttons. power and volume exactly across from each other. its hard to hit one without the other while holding the phone normally with one hand. lastly there is no mini hdmi port......hope this review helps some of you.

Good phone August 13, 2012

Reviewer:  Etches  (United States) -

This Samsung Galaxy SIII my first smartphone, so I'll admit that I don't have a lot of experience to compare this phone against others. So take this short review with a grain of salt.

The phone itself is great. Makes wonderful calls, has beautiful screen and has a wonderfully smooth feel to the glass screen. The performance has been wonderful, and I haven't had any application incompatibilities so far.
The camera is wonderful. My brother and I were competing against each other to take the best picture of our dad who was running in a race (aka. an action shot), and we both agreed that this phone did better than his really nice digital SLR camera.

The biggest (and only) shortfall is that this phone has poor battery life from what I'm used to with past "dumb phones." When I don't use it that much, the battery will last about a day and a half. However, if I'm doing GPS navigation or taking pictures, the phone's battery will drain very quickly. Of course, battery life is highly dependent on settings that the owner has configured for the phone. Also, I live in a rural area with poor cell-phone signal (no matter what carrier), so that has largely impacted my phone's battery life. I would expect that if I went to a less rural area, the battery life would increase substantially.

The phone comes with the following:
-The Samsung Galaxy SIII Smartphone
-Ear bud headphones with microphone, call control button, and volume adjustment
-Battery
-Charger with USB to micro USB cable

Voice Calls Inferior - Beautiful Display at Price of Battery Life July 15, 2012

Reviewer:  R. Baird  (Wake Forest, NC USA) -

What most customer reviews fail to mention is the quality of the voice calls. I've been using the S3 for several days now and have decided that despite its gorgeous display (which comes with a much shorter battery life), processing power, and innovative features and user interface, it does not do well what I consider to be the primary purpose of a phone: allow you talk and people at both ends be able to hear your voice clearly. The microphone/speaker on the S3 is clearly inferior to the my old Motorola Droid X. People say my voice has a mechanical muffled quality, and their voices to me have a fuzzy, rasping quality. I've switched phones with my daughter, who owns an iPhone, and I've listened to her, and I can verify what others say about how my voice sounds speaking into the S3. I'm sorry to say that the S3 is going back to Verizon tomorrow while I'm still within my 14 trial period. I'll miss most things about the S3, but my main requirement must be met and the S3 doesn't cut it.

Great Phone November 2, 2012

Reviewer:  Kevin 

Everything works very nicely. I have yet to have a real problem, even tethering works smoothly with multiple devices.
I have dropped this phone one time and although it did get some scratches it still looks good and works, no cracked screen or any nonsense.
The battery life blows, but I use this thing constantly; movies, internet, reddit, I'm always on it so I just charge it everywhere. I charge it in my car, i charge it at home and I charge it at work, nbd.
I highly recommend this phone its great. :D

Thoughts 2 months in January 25, 2013

Reviewer:  Dale E. Atwater 

There's lots to like about this phone. You probably have read all that. I'm going to tell you my specific reasons for giving this phone 2 stars after having it for 2 months.

I can boil it down to one thing then list specifics - the one thing is certain things stop working and can only be fixed by a reboot of the device. I didn't move from a 2 year old HTC product to the flagship Samsung product in order to have to reboot my device 3 to 5 times a day just to make basic functions work.

1. Voice input - the mic icon will sometimes not light up red or work, like the application cannot access the mic. Only fix I have found is to reboot the phone, and it works immediately.

2. Bluetooth music to my car stereo stutters. It didn't do this on my older phones which are half as powerful. A reboot fixes it.

3. GPS cannot get a fix. "Searching for GPS" will not go away. It will not get a fix. Toggling GPS on and off does not work. A reboot fixes it.

4. Drops wi-fi alot. Wifi disconnects, goes to 3g / 4g, then back to wifi ... all day long. Don't tell me it's my router or my signal. My old phone did not do this. My girlfriend's phone doesn't do this.

5. Apps stop responding - freeze up - screen sticks for 15-20 seconds sometimes. This shouldn't be happening on a phone this powerful.

6. Intermittently can't upload photos - to facebook, twitter, etc. They fail immediately. Reboot of phone fixes it every time.

7. And this one is probably Verizon ... switching between Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G on the fly is not exactly smooth. Connection invariably drops and takes more time than it should to pick back up.

I first went to Amazon with the issue. They told me to go to Verizon as it was past 30 days. Verizon would not let me e-mail customer service about it from their website. They want me to bring it to a retail store, which I have not had time to do yet. I e-mailed Samsung. They offered some troubleshooting - which was basically instructions on how to do a soft reset, then how to do a complete wipe of the phone if that didn't fix my issues. Soft reset did not fix it. I'm not really wanting to do a complete wipe at this point on a 2 month old phone. In any case I shouldn't have this many problems on a brand new flagship device from a major carrier. I tried to get Amazon to send me a device in advance and return packaging for the old one. No dice. I tried with Samsung. No dice. Verizon is my last hope and I really don't relish the thought of setting my phone up all over again ... but I guess it's my only chance of getting any kind of decent smart phone that is even as good as my 2 year old phone I just got rid of. In my opinion - this device is NOT all it's cracked up to be. Don't believe the hype.

Samsung Galaxy S3 April 14, 2013

Reviewer:  ACE 

I have owned the Samsung Galaxy S3 for about six months now. I must say I love it. I've owned the apple iPod, and iPad, but this phone blows those away. It has so many more features. You can create custom music settings, watch flash content, and there's a nice 4.7 inch high definition 1280x720 pixel screen. And since it's a flagship phone, you get a lot of updates and improvements. This phone always gets better.
The battery life is great to. I can usually comfortably get through a whole day of moderate usage with maybe 15-30 percent left. It also has NFC (Near Field Technology) built in so you can share pics and videos with friends by just touching phones or being close together. It's very light and easy to hold for its size. Typing is very natural to. I'm typing this review on my phone right now.
The camera is also great. You can snap pictures instantly. It's fast and full of detail. It's also incredible in low light situations. HD video is sweet also.
And wow is it tough. I was on the treadmill and I dropped mine. It hit the belt and spun off across my cement floor. Not a dent or scratch on mine. So I can definitely say that this phone is a great phone for anyone.
The inner specs are still pretty impressive, even compared to the new phones. It has a dual core 1.5 ghz processor. I know it's not a quad core like some newer phones, but it is still very fast at doing everything. It has 2 gigs of ram, which is still on par with the newest phones, and apps almost never close on me even when I've opened many other ones. It also has a decent amount of memory, and it even offers a memory card slot if you don't have enough. For the first time, I might keep a phone even when I can get a new one.

Everything it's cracked up to be January 23, 2013

Reviewer:  stacy  (KURE BEACH, NC, US) -

Love it! Comes with great instructional video loaded that explains how to use everything including how to turn off background running programs to save battery life. Simple setup, easy learning curve, Looks amazing, nice sim card feature although I have not used it out of the US yet - we'll see about that. Amazing features, not sure I'll use them all but nice that they are there. My battery held for a day and a half - after I finished messing with it every minute of the day.
Enjoy it, I am.