Gadgetory

the samsung galaxy s3 is the latest super phone to come out of South Korea it's available for most major carriers in the United States and even for international friends as well in fact the international version got very high marks from our very own Brandon minimun in his review just a few weeks ago today we're going to look at the verizon version of the samsung galaxy s3 how does it stack up against the international version and the other domestic versions as well does she have any proverbial tricks up her sleeves how does she perform against the others let's go take a look specifications are an important thing that we all look at when considering a new smartphone how did the specs of the verizon version of this phone stack up the casing of the verizon version is pretty much the same as all of its siblings like all the other US variants it's almost a totally different device from the international version of the phone do the different band requirements that we have stateside the verizon version like the other american variants instead has a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 SOC clocked at 1.5 gigahertz 2 gigabytes of RAM lastly the choice of processor brings with it another bonus support for verizon LTE unlike the sprint version the verizon sgs3 includes a user accessible micro sim next to the micro SD slot all the other details are essentially the same from the huge 4.8 inch super amoled display with 306 ppi and 720p resolution to the 8 megapixel capable of 1080p video recording and an LED flash nestled neatly on the back of the phone there's been a lot of talk about the pentile sub-pixel arrangement that Super AMOLED displays on the sgs3 use unfortunately despite its high resolution the display on the sgs3 isn't as great as that on the HTC One X on the other side unless you put your phone under a microscope you're probably not going to notice so with everything we've heard in the news about Samsung copying apple and an apple apologizing to Samsung for saying that it was copying Apple what do we think of the design of the samsung galaxy s3 there's nothing wrong with the design of the sgs3 but there's nothing really outstanding about it either the finish of the phone is a hyper glaze coating that makes the phone feel cheap it's terribly slippery and it attracts fingerprints better than anything we've seen recently are we being too hard on samsung perhaps but this isn't an entry-level phone this is a six-hundred-dollar flagship class superphone holding it in your hand however you won't feel like it is which is somewhat disappointing notwithstanding Samsung's failure to impress us with the hardware of the phone they did manage to impress us with the software Samsung has exercised a great deal of restraint with TouchWiz five-point oh lots of features which made ice cream sandwich such a breakthrough in you I haven't been messed with or they've just been tweaked with a little to improve them pushing me why forward Samsung put a lot of thought and effort into gesture and motion based commands some are fun and surprisingly useful others are still very rough around the edges like the other versions of this phone the verizon offering includes smart stay buddy photo share pop up play and s voice and is still laughable like the other versions Samsung decided to include a physical home button below the display additionally the menu and back buttons are capacitive and backlit but not all the time one more knit to pick there's no multi task button so if you want to quickly switch to another app you'll have to long press the home button adding time to something that by its very nature should be fast one of androids biggest advantages is its ability to load up a separate custom input panel or input method or soft keyboard whatever you want to call it the version that comes pre-installed on the galaxy s3 it's terrible it seems like every oam feels like it's necessary to customize the stock keyboard to quote make it better close quote the keyboard on the galaxy s3 is worse keyboard notwithstanding the everyday apps like email and messaging we're tolerable it's more than that they're functional and utilitarian just not all that pretty even after all that we're still very positive about the software experience on the galaxy s3 it works it's fast and it looks nice in the places that you're probably going to be using the most since a lot of us use our smartphones is our dedicated camera how did the sgs3 for verizon stack up color reproduction is quite good though the higher than normal saturation of s AMOLED displays means your results will often look quite different when viewed on a computer screen versus on the phone screen like its siblings there are many fun and useful features included with camera software which you'll probably never use the front facing camera is good for video calls and face unlock but not much more Samsung is customized face unlock to include some words so that you have to speak something if you want to choose that option it's nice and it adds a little bit extra security how about performance is this thing fast the phone's responsiveness and software experience was well above average it's not the buttery smooth experience that we've gotten used to in devices running jellybean but the update to jelly bean should come along fairly soon I tested the LTE everywhere I could in fact it got to where I was showing the thing off because I hardly ever got below 10 megabit per second that was usually always in the mid to high 20 megabits per second at work which is really just an industrial complex nothing really special there 30 megabit and higher all the time it blew everyone away 18t hspa+ couldn't hold a candle to it t-mobile two to three megabit down 10 times faster on verizon LTE but that comes with a cost unlike its siblings that get fairly good marks in the bat department the verizon version is just above average we were able to eke a full day out of the foam with moderate use but just barely on days we didn't use the phone much battery life was excellent your results will vary depending on how you use the phone but as long as you're not going nuts this device should last the average user from morning until at least early evening power users will probably want to carry a spare battery or plug in at the halfway point at the end of the day this thing is still a phone so how does it work making phone calls and doing other phony stuff voice calls were perfect probably due in part to Samsung's incall EQ settings Samsung's in colleague Q you can either set to OFF you can set it to a soft sound a clear sound or even optimize it for your right or left ear surprisingly this works really really well so in conclusion let's talk pros of course the first thing you're going to see on the phone is a big bright display it's slim and sleek has lots and lots of features and excellent you I customizations but the main thing you're going to take home about this phone is it's ridiculously fast LTE performance cons the lack of a quad-core processor may impair some power users or gamers but most users aren't going to notice the pentile display will be irritating to some although again it's not noticeable in everyday use it's unremarkable design feels too light in hand for a flagship phone this phone should have some heft to it it's slippery casing is a fingerprint magnet collects oil and honestly I've almost dropped this thing several times because it's so slick bring on the aftermarket back plates so in conclusion should you get this phone the Galaxy s3 isn't just a standout product it's probably the best smartphone available right now on any carrier honestly with the LTE speeds we tested this phone is the reason to switch to verizon right now how does its core hardware gets a solid nine software and user experience both tie with an eight bringing the total overall score to eight point three out of ten which isn't something that's easily done in my book if you like this video make sure you give it a thumbs up tell your friends about it and head on over to pocketnow.com for the full review for pocket now I'm Joe Levi