Review: Samsung Galaxy S III — Does The Third Time Charm?

I confess a weak spot for Samsung’s Galaxy line, and I’m clearly not the only one as Galaxy phones managed to take the number one spot for smartphone market share  in the first quarter of 2012. That’s a pretty impressive feat considering we live in a world where most people react to seeing a new smartphone by asking, “what kind of iPhone is that?” We’re now in the third quarter of the year and while Apple has yet to announce a new iPhone, Samsung has released the Galaxy S III. How does the third generation of their flagship phone fare?

Before I get into the phone itself, I want to mention a key feature that differentiates the Galaxy S III from other flagship phones: availability. If you’re on any of the major U.S. cell networks, you can get an S III. There is little difference between variants. There are some custom colors coming soon (AT&T is going all patriotic with red, white, and blue), but that’s really as far as the differences go. This is impressive and shows how much leverage Samsung has with cell providers, who are notorious for tweaking handsets. Techcitement used an AT&T version, but with the exception of carrier software, that’s almost a negligible factor.

The Galaxy S II impressed me with how good it felt in my hand. The S III, however, is downright uncomfortable to hold. It’s not that the device is too large, even if a 4.8” Super AMOLED is kind of pushing it. Rather, it’s the texture of the device. The S III feels plasticky, including the screen. Despite being made of high-end materials on the inside, the outside is cheap feeling. In searching for the best word to describe the feeling I get from the screen, “slimy” comes to mind. I get unsatisfying tactile feedback from this phone. This is the part where almost everyone yells at me, because the fact is most users are going to stick this in a case.

If we ignore the feel and focus on the look of the S III, it reminds me of the Galaxy Note, but shrunk a bit. Button and port layout is basic — power button on the right side, micro USB charger on the bottom, volume control on the left, headphone jack on the top, and a kind of annoying LED on the front for alerts and charge status. There’s also a front central button, like on the Note, which acts as the home key. A long press activates task switching, and it’s a nice implementation. The physical center button reminds me of an iPhone or a Pre. While the S III isn’t going to win any beauty contests, you won’t need to put a brown bag over it in public either.

Lackluster outsides are a stark contrast to the insanely stellar insides. The S III runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5 GHz dual core CPU, has 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage plus a MicroSD slot, 8 MP rear camera and 1.9 MP front, and works on AT&T’s impressive LTE network. That’s quite a remarkable set of specs. Samsung has thrown a 2100mAh battery in there to handle all of the horsepower, and it doesn’t disappoint. Most notable are the standby times — I kept forgetting the phone in my bag and kept pulling it out charged. That almost never happens with units that I test.

The S III runs Android 4.0.4. (Ice Cream Sandwich). ICS is not in as many phones as one would expect at this point, which is kind of sad as the next version of Android has already hit the market. Considering phones continue to be released with Android 2.3.4. (Gingerbread) on them, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. What I can’t be happy about is the version of TouchWiz that Samsung has cursed this phone with. I’m not the biggest fan of skins to begin with, but NatureUX (what Samsung is calling TouchWiz on the S III) is less of a skin and more of a complete replacement for the Android GUI. There are some neat bits, like the ripple water effect you get when sliding to unlock, but then there are the annoying things, which are so numerous as to be worth a separate review. Still, I’ll break down my top three:

• The default water droplet alert sound makes me want to stick a drill in my ears.
• “Customizable Grid” is the default app view. In this setting, when you install an app, it’s not put in alphabetical order in the app drawer. Instead, it resides on its own page after the list of pre-installed apps. This is counter-intuitive, and it’s barely balanced by the fact that you can swipe app views in either direction. That doesn’t change the fact that it was a terrible decision. Average users are simply not going to realize that they can change this by hitting menu while in the app view.
• Android 4 made it easy to add folders. NatureUX buries the option in such a way that I wasn’t even sure I could do it.

As much as I dislike NatureUX, it’s not too far a departure from TouchWiz, and that’s clearly what Samsung is going for. In fact, so many features and apps are unique to the phone that it’s downright impressive. One of my absolute favorites is that you can make a call from the text message app without dialing. In the middle of a text? Put the phone by your face and the proximity sensor triggers, making it dial your correspondent. That’s some Jetsons tech, right there. Also cool, but a tad more annoying, is that the phone uses the camera in the front to track if you’re looking at it and manages the brightness of the screen accordingly. I found this feature to be a bit hit or miss, to be honest. Then there’s the ability to play video, leave it running and go into an app, with it playing in a “picture in picture” format. I can’t think of quite so many uses for that, but it’s unique and noteworthy. Also, I confess a love for the basic but useful quick settings menu in the pull down shade. It’s a bit more useful than the one in HTC’s Sense, and a feature I’d love to see come to the regular Android OS.