Gadgetory

hey guys it's Michael with pocketnow.com this is a big week for Samsung in the United States they've announced their galaxy s3 phone for all four major nationwide carriers as well as a fifth US Cellular now that's a big deal the galaxy s3 is essentially identical across all of the US carriers but it differs significantly from the international version released a few weeks ago as far as specs under the hood go now I've got the international version of the galaxy s3 here and I've also got a Sprint branded version right here we're gonna do some app launch comparisons some benchmarks and other speed tests and see how these devices stack up speed wise we got a lot to do Michael it's pocket now here we go okay so I mentioned some spec differences between these models let's see what they are now the International version of the galaxy s3 is powered by an Exynos 4210 a nine processor clocked at 1.4 gigahertz backed up by one gig of ram the radio is Penta band GSM the storage options are available from 16 to 64 gigs and microSD expansion up to an additional 64 gigs the Sprint version like all the US variants is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 dual-core CPU clocked at 1.5 gigahertz that's a dual-core processor but it allows the Sprint version to incorporate support for LTE and it's made with the 28 nanometer process as opposed to the Exynos 32 nanometer and it's backed up by double the RAM two gigs in all the US versions as opposed to one for storage there are 16 or 32 gig variants with the same expandable microSD card slot for all those changes under the hood though as you can see these are very similar almost identical devices physically both are running Android 4.4 with the TouchWiz 5 nature UX skin in the out of box configuration because it's so hard to tell them apart I'll keep the Sprint one here on the right for the duration of the video ok let's start the test battery let's go for a boot up time check so both of these devices are on the same page the international version was given a hard reset and I installed only the apps were going to be testing today the Sprint version was new out of the box just a few days ago and I did the same on it so aside from setting up the bare minimum of accounts and home screen shortcuts these are very close to an out-of-box condition here we go then 1 2 3 so already we can see the differences here the GTI 9300 is displayed on the international version and the international version is quite a head start now we have the Sprint carrier-specific animation here 4G LTE called out dual Samsung banners sorry about the screen reflection on this one here and already we're up on the international one can unlock the screen and we are ready to go we have a network connection and everything there we go now the Sprint one has finally caught up so we're talking about a difference there really we're only talking two or three seconds I think is what that felt like but just in case you are constantly turning on or off your device that could matter a lot or a little depending on you now let's move on to app launching and see how these devices fare launching various stock applications so as you can see just to be sure on the same page here these devices are running with 0 open apps and they're both connected to the same Wi-Fi network in the office here so one of the first things we do out of the box especially if you're migrating from a previous Google device is to redownload all your apps from the market so let's try a test launch of the Google Play Store here we go 1 2 3 very quick load on each one almost identical as far as that goes so that's nice then let's move on to email which I have set up with my pocket now email address 1 2 3 boom and we have this first use dialog telling us how to double tap to get the top of a list once again that was pretty instant on each device let's try messaging boom I have no messages because I use Google Voice but those apps launched right away let's try maps 1 2 3 the International Version for some reason has us over in Ireland but then we do a little location check there and then the location thing here and that's great and the camera one of the most important things that you want to be able to launch quickly 1 2 3 but viewfinder is up identical time on each and they've both got no focus because their face down but that focus happened instantaneously no difference let's go into the browser one of the things you're gonna be spending a lot of time in unless you use the third-party browser 1 2 3 boom ok now I was doing some testing before so these are loaded the last page that was up but we're gonna hop on into bookmarks here and we're gonna see if we can load the desktop version of pocketnow.com if we can find it there it is 1 2 3 as I said before these are connected to the same network so theoretically they should be experiencing the same speed very very very quick on each and we have that ad loaded finally they're not too shabby on each device let's do a little bit of zooming in action here zooming in simultaneously pinch-to-zoom almost a one-to-one ratio there you can see the both the international version and the sprint version need time to re render the page at the larger view but I can determine no difference performance scrolling is great we're gonna try and sorry we're gonna try and tap a link here at the same time to see a new page load let's go in and read this story let's do a chain one two three boom pages load once again now the International Version was about a second ahead that time but really unless you are really pressed for time I'm talking sub-second time levels these are very very similar as far as performance in the browser goes let's try to load another page I tend to like nasa.gov because it is heavy with media and space type stuff that I like one two three boom this is the NASA home page not the mobile site so it should take a second to render once again International Version just slightly ahead there by a sub second amount once again pinch to scroll pinch to zoom rather rerender way in here once again no discernible performance difference to my eye of course if stock apps were the whole story we'd all still be using dumb phones what about third-party applications let's test a few okay so for third-party apps we're just gonna load a few here let's go for Flipboard very very pretty app made its Android debut on this device and now is available on most Android devices responsiveness is nice launch time unsurprisingly is identical hop into facebook facebook splash screen international version just about a second ahead so that's a trend that's starting to develop a little bit except it didn't load that image quite as quickly so inconsistent but we're only talking a second or two Twitter boom Twitter feed loads there it is some new people have followed me that's always nice to see and let's try Google+ if you use it one two three Google+ loads and that time the Sprint version beat it so it's inconsistent the international version doesn't always lead despite its beefier processor and let's hop into YouTube now for a YouTube we want to see how these manage video we don't really care about load time we just want to see if there's any difference in how these devices buffer and play the same video it will hop into the pocket now account up on in here I'm going to tap in at the same time 1 2 3 boom so see International Version heart we're gonna turn me down cuz I just talk a lot this is after the Buzz episode 3 if you haven't watched it you should it's awesome ya know I mean there was a very very very slight time difference between these two devices but once again nothing to write home about and speaking of video while we're here we might as well test one of the more processor intensive special features of the galaxy s3 pop up play this is a 1280 by 720 WMV file from nasa.gov called dynamic earth let's see if we can play that on each here and will enable pop up play on each and we can kind of drag that around in there we go missus this is good now there would be sound playing on this normally performance on each of these devices is essentially unaltered with pop up play active in the foreground here not that you would be doing a lot of intensive browsing or texting while you're in pop up play mode but theoretically you could do almost anything on the device except maybe watch another video which might be a fun check but which we are not going to do today now as we've mentioned before these devices have very different configurations as far as hardware goes with the processor and the RAM so let's run some benchmarks and see what we get ok so let's hop on over to benchmarks here the first benchmark test we're gonna run is quadrant standard and we will run them three to one with a full benchmark boom okay so on quadrant on the left here in the international version we're looking at 53 85 I'll show you that result right there pretty similar to results the first time we ran this down in New York City and on the Sprint version on the right here we're sitting at five zero five nine okay so that's quadrant let's go ahead and run smart bench okay so the sprint version finished very quickly compared to the International Version let's see what these scores are all about okay you can see we'll do international version first sitting at God that's really really difficult to read thirty-nine sixteen and sixteen twelve is the stock rom score yes that is 39 16 I'm a sprint version here we're sitting at 28 22 just confirm that and one of the big reasons to buy a top-of-the-line fancy spec loaded smartphone these days is for gaming so let's run a game and see how they compare so I like flight simulator games on Android and the graphically intense flight simulator I chose for this one was explains let's load it one two three boom once again International on the Left sprint version on the right spin version as the splash screen up first but I'm thinking that the international version is going to be ready to play first this is a landscape game yes there we go past the title screen Oh No Wow all right even though the sequence was out of order on these guys they loaded effectively identically let's play with the international one first make sure the volumes up so we get some great jet noise throttle and the flaps down to half whoa whoa no no reason to go off the runway already performance is buttery smooth on the control interfaces themselves let's get some camera angles here did not mean to use the map stay in the cockpit please running out a runway here so I'm hoping I'll be able to take off soon and there's our liftoff the camera angle here there we go performance very very very smooth even if you are an amateur pilot like me I haven't used I explain a whole lot and see if I can get back into the cockpit here before I end up doing something excellent graphic performance index plane and Oh No flaming death alright so that's how we do internationally let's go ahead and take off on the Sprint version here max throttle sure our volume is up there we go bring the flaps down same basic idea no difference so far of any kind that I can tell rudder controls here good do a view change there let's see if we can rotate and we can good again here's our other view once again buttery smooth absolutely no discernible difference between the quad core and the dual core devices to my eye and I have played this once or twice ah flaming death I have played this once or twice on both devices for longer periods and they both do perform right about on par right in line with what we've been seeing pretty much this whole time the devices are very very close to one another as far as performance goes finally we want to do a speed test now we're on the same network here so we won't run the test at the same time so it's not too corrupt these results these should be similar does this really mean anything probably not but this is one of our key keyer videos where we go into extreme details so if these are valuable to you I want to include them good speed test complete there we'll begin it on this one in the meantime here are my internet speeds in Boston if any of you are interested not too shabby on this Wi-Fi network and here it is on this other device so 36 down 33 down on the Sprint device upload is 17 up here upload as 19 up here so comparable results no big surprise because it is the same network so there are significant differences between these two models under the hood but as we've seen today there's really very little difference in real world use between these two phones unless you're doing some very processor intensive stuff this has been Michael with pocketnow.com give us a thumbs up if you liked the video if you've got something to say leave a comment on the post at pocket Oh calm if you want to follow us on Twitter you can do that at pocket now - eats I'm also on Twitter at captain - phones that's captain the number to phones and stay tuned we've got a lot more coverage on the galaxy s3 and it's international and US variants coming down the pipe in the next few days and weeks till then once again I'm Michael it's pocketnow.com thanks for watching