Gadgetory

hi there this is adam lane from pacquiao calm and this is our full review of the samsung galaxy s 3 for 18 t if you haven't already be sure to check out all of our other galaxy s3 coverage in our galaxy s3 playlist this time we've got the pebble blue version let's check it out galaxy s3 is one of the most anticipated smartphones of the air and if you add the blazing fast speeds of 80 s new LTE network turn for a good ride let's start with the specs samsung galaxy s3 ships with Android 4.4 and does a Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 1.5 gigahertz dual-core CPU with two gigs of ram and 16 gigs of on-board storage with a microSD slot for expansion the front camera can take those at 1.9 megapixels and video at 720p while the rear camera is an 8 megapixel shooter with a flash and can record Full 1080p video at 30 frames per second the Super AMOLED pentile display is 4.8 inches at 1280 by 720 resolution making for a dpi of 305 the phone is quad band UMTS with LTE support on ATT you also get Wi-Fi b/g/n Bluetooth 4.0 a-gps digital compass and NFC the phone is 133 grams and only eight point six millimeters thick to power it all you've got a 2100 milliamp hour battery let's take a closer look at hardware the design of the galaxy s3 is the most unique I've seen from Samson in recent years this is the pebble blue version and we are very impressed with its beauty there's no more weird lip on the back as there was with the galaxy s2 and the plastic feels much more high quality at the top we've got the handset speaker along with some sensors a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera and an LED light it alerts you to certain notifications which can be customized in the settings then you've got a massive 4.8 inch screen with a very thin bezel and at the bottom is a hardware-based home button flanked by passive back and many buttons to kind of disappear to the body when the back lights are off on the right side is a small sliver of a power button on the bottom you'll see the microphone hole and a micro USB port on the left side is a thin volume toggle button on the top is the 3.5 millimeter headset jack and a thin slot that you can use to pry the battery cover off on the back is the 8 megapixel camera with a single LED flash and speaker after prying off the back you can see the 20 100 million per hour battery as well as the microSD slot and sim card slot the battery cover plastic is very bendable one problem with the beautifully designed hardware is that it's glossy plastic is very sensitive to fingerprints and also very slippery in the hand the galaxy s3 is not as organ AMA kaz it could be the thinness makes it more difficult to hold since there's less surface area on the edges for your thumb and fingers to generate a stable grip as is the case with all phones that have large screens trying to reach the upper areas of the screen is an exercise in frustration if you only have one free hand to interact with advice the most comfortable way to use this device is to hold it flat in the palm of your hand letting gravity keep it there while interacting with it using your other hand in the pocket however the galaxy s3 is thinness is quite advantageous since it does not cause too much bulk at all now let's talk about the software one of the first things I did was create a better-looking wallpaper image since most of the others were unimpressive though there are some interesting live wallpapers included there's one that animates news stories in the wallpaper background and one that shows stock quotes we like the one that shows photos from the photo gallery but we dislike that we have to manually select a hundred of them and it crops most images in the worst ways possible the default widgets aren't terribly attractive either the weather clock widget has a goofy lens flare in the corner that doesn't even come from the Sun shone in the same graphic we've also got a few other default widgets on the other home screens that some might consider bloatware though others might find them useful the exception is Flipboard widget which we liked a lot the flute app is quite a good-looking way to flip through news stories by default are numerous seemingly superfluous apps included that are sure to confuse some users for example there's apps called messages messaging and messenger in the app tray there's also chat on and talk which are a couple more messaging apps and the talk app lets you do pretty much the same thing as the messenger app with the same people then you've got play music and music player which share similar functions and then the same thing you've got play movies and TV which has functions that overlap the video player app it's fun trying to remember all the differences though Samson has also included a secondary video store called the media hub that duplicates functions of the play movies and TV app but sometimes gives you different prices in case you want to bargain shop s memo is a decent note-taking and dry nap that also supports voice recording and syncs with your Samson account as suggests is just another way of discovering apps all it does is link you to the Google Play Store to download apps that Samson decides to feature then there's s voice which is a nice attempt to adding a new speech interface of the galaxy s3 but it falls short of being that terribly useful the deal breaker for us is the fact that it won't read incoming text messages you can send text messages without looking at the phone sure but when someone replies you have to pick it up and reate yourself in terms of interesting customizations Samsung has added quite a few features many of which might never catch on and do not have any usability advantage whatsoever for example the one where you hold a finger on the lock screen for a couple seconds while holding your phone up and then you rotate it to launch the camera that's way too convoluted the one where you simply find a contact and then hold the phone up to your ear to dial without pressing a dial button it's actually very cool that brings us to the keyboard just like Brandon and Michael I found this autocorrect feature to be horribly frustrating you'll want to install a better keyboard like swipe or swiftkey next let's look at the camera the galaxy s3 is able to use its LED auto focus assist which is important for getting sharp photos in low-light unfortunately the AF assist feature makes for a significant increase in shutter lag since it doesn't attempt to focus until after you press the shutter button unless you touch the screen to set it focus point first in that case light will come on for focusing and then it'll shut off without taking picture but then pressing the shutter button will be faster not having a dedicated camera button for half press focusing and full press shutter makes this process more difficult and more likely to miss the shot though for still objects it works well low-light shots tend to be well exposed however the amount of noise is very high outdoors the camera is quite good and boasts some fun optional shooting modes and a lag free shutter while we love the idea of the panoramic shooting mode samson's implementation doesn't work well at all seams and duplicate shapes are are too frequent compared to HTC's panoramic shooting mode for example be sure to look at our full review on pocketnow.com full resolution sample photos from the galaxy s3 in terms of battery life we found the galaxy s3 to be quite good we could easily last all day and we're getting around 20 hours worth of normal usage LTE speeds on 18 T's network were phenomenal if coverage is available in terms of pricing and availability you can now buy the galaxy s3 from ATT for 199 with a 2-year contract and qualifying rate plan many of our annoyances are software related and thus can be fixed by the developer community so if your power user who likes to install different roms try out all sorts of hacks and do some heavy customizing you're sure to like this phone our final rating is 4 out of 5 stars the galaxy s3 is a great device for android fans who want the latest hardware with lots of room to grow be sure to check out our galaxy s3 playlist on YouTube for much more coverage and comparisons on this device don't forget to give this video a thumbs up and thanks for watching you