Samsung Galaxy S III Samsung's Galaxy S III is one of the most feature-stuffed smartphones yet. Well, at least there’s room, as it's equipped a 4.8in screen. Samsung's Galaxy Note 5.3in tablet-phone aside, this handset touts the largest display you'll find on a mainstream mobile and it packs a quad-core CPU too. Samsung Galaxy S III Android …
Again the AC makes a very good point, cosying up to MS has made Nokia the darling of the mobile phone industry, selling more phones than they can build. I was late for work this morning due to the queues to get into Merry Hill P4U to pick up a Nokia Lumia.
I feared this article was going to make me regret picking up an Xperia S a couple of months ago, but not a bit of it. Now I realise I should have got a Lumia, it's what all the cool kids are doing! Although all these cool kids do appear to be in Reading. I still can't figure out why.
Exactly. Samsung have put out their third revision of the most popular smartphone on the market and are still somehow failing - I say "somehow" because I don't know how they are failing. So they should switch to Windows Phone, which is now on attempt number 7 and still most definitely failing to acquire a market share.
Troll Score: 0/10. Or should that be 0 out of 7?
I got trolled really badly on this thread actually.
After not reading the reg for a while, I took the comments seriusly.
"What a turn around for MS, people actually buying thier phones"
"And for Samsung too, I though they were gonna be the new apple'
"Oh...wait..."
Well, there's always this lovely Batman edition Lumia 900
And at only £100 more than the Galaxy S III, its a real bargain to boot. Certainly not run-of-the-mill and you will get many "admiring" glances and comments** as passers-by notice the striking "Batman" logo and cool Batman wallpaper.
** If you consider someone rolling their eyes and muttering "w**ker" to be "admiring".....
"Wake me up when it runs Windows Phone 7.5. Nobody is interested in another run of the mill android phone"
I assume you're trolling. In fact I know you're trolling. But you wouldn't want WP7 on this. I have a Lumia 710 and it works quickly enough with its single-core processor. Quad-core phones are for Android which wnats that processor capacity. WP7 simply doesn't use it. A phone like this would be absurd overkill for it.
Xperia Arc S owner.
Runs smoothly, occasional pause if I'm taking the piss out of it, but otherwise a solid phone.
Single core by the way. Android. It's also gone from 2.2 to 2.3 to 4.0, even if the last update needed awful bloatware installed on a computer with its own Internet connection to work.
Would ya like to try re-thinking the "needs a quad core" statement? Only things I see "needing" multi-core and heavy duty GPUs are things like 3D buildings in Google Maps/Earth, and certain games. Maybe multicore would help if you're the type to have umpteen highly-active badly-programmed widgets on each home screen, but even then that's less of a load than you think. Even my Mum's el cheapo Galaxy Y runs at a nice pace, and that's a "free on contract" bog standard basic thing with an 832Mhz processor.
Not sure where the "needs a supercomputer" myth came from, unless it's from people using really shit 600mhz ARM11 things running Cupcake or Donut. Those things really do need a kick up the arse.
I thought there was a new sensor? It's the same size, pixel-wise, but seems to be a better chip, and also has back-side illumination now. Which I assume is good.
Going to have to go and play with this one before thinking about buying. First impression is that I'd rather stick with my Note for now and wait for the (surely inevitable?) sequel, but I'm sorely tempted by the S3 the more I see of it.
Winpho runs fine on a single core because Microsoft won't let you do anything with it, it doesn't need extra umph because there is nothing on it and when Winpho get 10000 apps that use extra umph, like Dead space, Mass effect 3 or shadow gun, you will be regretting that it isn't single core. However if mine sweeper, solitaire and some god awful in house apps they have written are your bag, then a single core is fine.
Want to put a background on your front page? No.
Want to remove some of the stupid icons / hubs, tiles or whatever MS PR call them, completely from your front screen? No.
Want to develop your own apps and put them on when and where you want? Without MS saying yes? No.
Nokia the "darling of the mobile phone industry"... Eh, what? When? Struggling monolithic, and desperate more like.
The galaxy's only short coming is the plastic case. Not sure I trust that over an aluminium one.
"Winpho runs fine on a single core because Microsoft won't let you do anything with it"
Funnily enough they let me do anything I want
"it doesn't need extra umph because there is nothing on it"
There are 136 apps on mine...
"...and when Winpho get 10000 apps that use extra umph, like Dead space, Mass effect 3 or shadow gun, you will be regretting that it isn't single core."
Well I'm running plenty of great games so I'll wait for that to happen I guess, lol
"Want to put a background on your front page? No."
No I don't. The start screen is covered with live tiles, there's no need for a background, it would just clutter things up.
"Want to remove some of the stupid icons / hubs, tiles or whatever MS PR call them, completely from your front screen? No."
I can remove any/all live tiles that I want to.
"Want to develop your own apps and put them on when and where you want? Without MS saying yes? No."
I don't develop apps so will leave that for someone else to answer. All the apps I want are in the marketplace.
"The galaxy's only short coming is the plastic case. Not sure I trust that over an aluminium one."
I'd say having a mobile OS that needs four CPU cores is a bit of a shortcoming. Hurts now that the shoe is on the other foot, doesn't it?
the original question was "Is Android so bloated that it needs a quad core CPU?".
It's more likely it's because it's badly written, not because it's bloated. If it was because of bloat it'd need a load of memory not extra cores.
But then, writing something that works well on multiple cores is trickier than writing something that works well on one, so it can't be that badly written, can it?
So why does a phone OS need quad cores? Does anyone have anything sensible to contribute rather than just trying to shift the discussion to another OS? I'm interested in knowing why Android needs that much power, what is it doing that needs it?
Oh, but in the spirit of the discussion, iPhone OS is rubbish!
"...you have the option of having several other tasks running in the background without impacting the core system."
Never had that problem, TBH. I seem to be able to have Tunein Radio streaming away, content synching with the cloud, live tiles updating themselves, all happening in the background while I surf the net, and no UI slowdown at all. On a single core. Ah well. Works for me. *shrug*
>>looking at many other devices, it quite clearly does not.<<
Doesn't it? I've got an android phone (sony xperia play) and it definitely struggles at times. Not so badly that you think it's crashed, but so badly that you press something twice because you don't think the first press has registered.
The boy's Monte Carlo is apparently getting slower and slower. We got it for christmas, he's just been telling me he writes his texts then puts the phone down for a minute while the screen catches up, checks his message then sends...
So while you can argue android doesn't need quad core, it seems that there are definitely phones out there that are running android that are under specced for it.
I too have a play, the slow downs are due to Sony bloatware, I'm running CM9 RC0 (Ice Cream Sandwhich FXP 121 kernel). It runs smoothly and I have around 60-70 applications installed, Hotmail push email, SMS Backup & Restore, 3G Watchdog, Facebook, Google+, Llama, BTFon, BeWeather, CoPilot, etc...
The Sony based roms out there tend to suffer from lag and with that many applications you are always fighting for memory (Sony's beta ICS build was horrific for it).
I've also found the phone works a lot better when you have 100mb's free in application storage, if you get below that lag starts appearing so moving applications accross to the SD card helps alot.
Considering Sony have cancelled the ICS release for the Play I was toying with getting an S3 next year
My S2 rarely uses its second core but it does work in heavy games. Never noticed a slow down to be honest.
I'd love to see how you store movies, music, random crap on your winpho though. I think I have upwards of 26gb now on mine (spread between internal and the 32gb uSD). You still cannot sync multiple exchange accounts to the winpho. Odd that android and iphones let you do this. Pretty much a no brainer for sysadmins really. MS answer is to use OWA. Peachy huh? I must admit at last they let you have multiple calendars for the single exchange account. Thats nice considering again it has been on android since 1.6 and iphones.
Cant say i'd swap my s2 for a winpho. I see you're a fan of tunein pro - me too! Try copying a file over the network, stream and play a game at the same time. I typically play PES2012 for a few minutes when i'm copying TV episodes (whilst listening to rocky FM). The lumia 900 in the office borked when trying to multitask this way.
Whilst the lumia 900 and winpho 7.5 might look nice, its pretty much all knickers no action TBH.
nope, it works just fine on my milestone which, last time i checked was a single core. and i should know because i worked on the 3430.
of course you can but dream about swapping sd cards, copying and playing movies of just about any available format etc. you could also argue that you see no need for this and so convince yourself that all is hunky-dory, and you would be correct in this. whatever rocks your boat son, be happy with it.
having said that, i am surprised to see that microsoft has not managed to make major inroads into the corporate environment. assuming they can have better integration with office viewers and better support for displaying and modifying office documents, i would expect them to own this segment.
"cheap plastic case" - they're using the exact same material as HTC are for the One X, just with a gloss rather than matt finish.
Personally I don't like the rubbery feeling HTC used to use, but it's just horses for coconuts.
Bloke brought one of these into the office this afternoon having found the last shop in town with any in stock. It feels really, really nice in the hand. I'm very impressed, and even more tempted than I was before. It's weird, because it's apparently heavier than the One X (just), but there's definitely something in the ergonomic claims Samsung have been making. It really somehow feels a lot thinner and lighter than it actually is - but still solid.
I like it a lot.
What happens when one wears shades ?
Also what happens when I light a ciggy putting my phone down in the process, that is encrypted with the compulsory letters and number combination for the password on the lock screen? I put the phone down, light the fag and then have the bloody thing turn off and have to enter the lock screen. I have an S II which has rubbish battery life and a screen so big that entering the lock code with one hand frequently means it presses shift or settings with my palm, it also crashes far more often after the ICS upgrade and does odd things like refuses to find the GPS and overheats in a car window mount. AND the SIII is plastic ? Give me an aluminium honey comb grid on the back as a heat sink, a big battery so I don't need the lock screen on every 15 seconds to save power and for security, and don't give me wallpaper on the apps screen where the app designers have no HID guidelines so the icons clash. I don't want a walled garden, I want a man's phone that is usable.
Samsung might suggest you stop smoking as a way to get around one of your complaints there.
Ah the same school of thought that came up with holding iPhones in a special grip or fitting 'em with a rubber sock to make 'em get a signal. An inconvenient and unwanted workaround to a core fuckup is not a fix.
My solution to this problem is to ensure that everything sensitive on my smartphone lives in an encrypted container and then to leave the ruddy password off the device. That way I get to use the regular functions by merely dabbing "unlock" and only have to type in a password when accessing data that actually warrants password protection. I've never understood the mentality of someone who's prepared to go through the pwd rigmarole just to make a phone call or look something up on the web.
If this is a 1.4GHz quad core vs the OneX 1.5GHz quad core with a companion core how does the Sammy get 12130 Antutu score yet the OneX a 10588?
(source - the OneX review: http://www.reghardware.com/2012/04/06/review_htc_one_x_android_smartphone/page2.html)
It's been a while but last time I looked bigger numbers usually mean better? Or is Antutu just a crap benchmarking app?
Don't forget about GPU and other capabilities.
Just because the CPU is faster in one device, doesn't mean it's faster overall. CPU probably only accounts for about a 3rd of the overall score in Antutu. (Obviously will differ from one device to the next).
If you assumed the CPUs were equal in every except the clock speed, 1.4 to 1.5GHz is barely noticeable statistically. A device usually has to be 30%+ faster to actually be noticeable to most peeps.
"It's been a while but last time I looked bigger numbers usually mean better?"
Was the purpose of this post to demonstrate that you know nothing about technology? That is all it accomplished.
Clock speed is one of the least important things in a processor, as anyone with a degree in Electrical Engineering knows.
"Clock speed is one of the least important things in a processor, as anyone with a degree in Electrical Engineering knows."
Er, I have a degree in Electronic Engineering, and I'll have to disagree with you on this. Yes, parallelism such as Superscalar technology plays a dominant part of modern processor design, but calling clock cycles the "least important thing" in a processor is a bit disingenuous. Clock speed is still a multiplier. If you're executing 3 instructions per clock, doubling clock speed will still double the number of instructions you're executing in a given period.
Yes, clock speed has historically been overemphasised by the media, but try explaining the benefits of increased parallelism to someone who just wants to buy a decent phone. Generally a higher frequency means a faster processor, even if the increased speed is also down to the extra development work us Engineers have put into the architecture.
Is it possible Antutu scores a smartphone on a range of tasks, not all of which rely solely on CPU speed? E.g. memory copy operations will in fact test memory bandwidth not CPU speed. Or graphically intensive tasks, which will test the GPU architecture.
I guess the individual benchmark scores would be interesting too then.
So which is better, the One X or this?
Both got 90% and good reviews, but I have seen more hype about the Samsung.
Opportunity for El Reg to do an article pitting them side by side perhaps? (Maybe a 3 way contest against the iPhone since I'm sure some people will want to see that comparison, though I'm only bothered about the Samsung and the HTC myself)
You know, it's fine to prefer Android over iOS, but all these comments slagging off iPhones just come off as insecure. This is supposed to be a review thread for an Android phone and still you can't resist taking a swipe at the iPhone.
I long for the good old days when there was no Android OS and grown ups could discuss mobile operating systems without it degenerating into a childish willy waving contest over iOS/Android and as of recently Windows Phone.
yeah fine.. but do note that it is NOT a 'level playing field'... go on, have a close look at what you would be missing if you went for apple instead...
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-vs-Apple-iPhone-4S_id3038
its a bit like comparing a 'land rover' to a ford escort...
I can see the comparative review..
"the ford escort tends to get stuck while doing 'off road' but its MPG and styling is good.."
" the land-rover has no problem with dirt, that a quick spray down wont cure.. "
Oh noes! Not heard that one before..... phone-that-doesn't-do-much lasts longer than phone-that-does-loads.
I like smartphones. I get home and I quite often don't turn the PC on yet I can browse whatever websites I want, catch up on a book, play a few games, order up some shopping, control a PC at work, or stream music from Google Music. It also worked a treat when I moved house and didn't have broadband for 10 days. However, if that usage model doesn't fit you, then nobody's forcing a smartphone on you.
I also have a crappyphone. It's a Nokia 2120 or something. It lasts 8 days if I don't use it, which I don't, because it doesn't have any features I want to use. Work gave it me so I could be contactable but luckily my generally grumpy nature put a stop to people phoning me.
A quick note about the back. Remember, it's fully removeable so that opens the possibility of replaceable backs (i.e. different colours, textures etc.), larger backs to allow an even larger battery to be used (replaceable battery unlike the HTC, an micro SD support, also unlike the HTC) and also an alternative back that allows wireless recharging.
They are also doing a flip style case which is built in to it's own back, i.e. replaces the existing phone back.
That's quite standard for AMOLED screens, whites take on a greenish tinge, especially if you aren't look at them straight on. I noticed it when I had a play with a GS3 yesterday in Phones 4 U, yes the screen is big, but its pretty fugly imo. Forced colours and nowhere near as sharp as the one on my Xperia S, I'll pass on this one thanks.
"The department of Shortsightedness".
I'm so nearsighted, shit so looks much smaller through my glasses that I adjust font sizes upwards a few steps on most Web sites, f'rexample. (I think the glasses are supposed to work that way; a law of optics, you can't gain sharpness except at the expense of apparent size.)
So at least for me, the larger the screen, the better: The only thing I'm not totally happy with my Galaxy S2 about is, had I known the Galaxy Note was coming, I'd have waited and bought that in stead.
And I bet there's many more like me, with totaly legitimate shortages which we're very grateful that Samsung helps us compensate for. Now go back to teasing the other kids, whippersnapper, and stop bothering the grown-ups.
(None, because adults are able to communicate without funny little pictures.)
it's so people like me can see what we're doing and also tap in using the on-screen keyboard... I don't want a small phone, the size of the on screen keyboard squares is too small and the text is hard to read...
playing games and watching videos and browsing the web is also a far nicer experience...
ps. I have a Galaxy S2... I used to have a much smaller screened Android phone, but ended up hating it...
"Why do all the Android manufacturers seem to think that everyone wants a handset half the size of Wales?"
Research. There was some survey that found people want big screens. They want to sell phones so they give people what they want.
Besides - name one Android manufacturer that only makes large screen phones - you don't make any sense.
Couldn't have anything to do with certain countries becoming manufacturing powerhouses because their attitude toward health, safety, and the treatment of their workers is somewhat more, shall we say, "lassez faire" than in the West?
Or even people who want things manufactured not caring in what conditions they are manufactured so long as they save 50p a unit.
Naw, it's because people like expensive phones. That's why.
"more, shall we say, "lassez faire" than in the West?"
well hey, we could always employ western workers!!! then the price would be only £1500.... :) :)
- and who cares about the eastern workers dying of poverty, or finding even more demeaning work??
I am sure you would LOVE to pay more - got a spare £2000 you are not using???
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