Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 Review

[desiJATT]

So guys, as some of you know I bought the new Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 on 31st of July, Here's a detailed review for the same. The specifications of the device -

Weight 133 g
- Touch-sensitive controls

DISPLAY Type Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 720 x 1280 pixels, 4.8 inches (~306 ppi pixel density)

Multitouch Yes

Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 2
- TouchWiz UI

CAMERA Primary 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash.

Features Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization
Video Yes, 1080p@30fps.

Secondary Yes, 1.9 MP, 720p@30fps

FEATURES OS Android OS, v4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

Chipset Exynos 4412 Quad

CPU Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9

GPU Mali-400MP

Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer

Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS

Browser HTML, Adobe Flash

Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS

GPS Yes, with A-GPS support and GLONASS

Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator

Colors Pebble blue, Marble white
- MicroSIM card support only

- S-Voice natural language commands and dictation
- Smart Stay eye tracking
- Dropbox (50 GB storage)
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
- SNS integration
- MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
- Organizer
- Image/video editor
- Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
- Voice memo/dial/commands
- Predictive text input (Swype)

Specification Courtesy GSMArena.

Package

The packaging was very basic, with the box being very small. Very surprising to see that the box was too small for a phone of this calibre, and for a such an expensive one. The packaging had very basic stuff packed in, they were -



Europeon USB Charger (Two round pins, unlike US one with rectangular pins 110V AC)
Data Cable
Headphones
Quick Start Guide, Warranty Information and other printed stuff.



Nothing much in it. I would have appreciated at least a leather cover, just like Galaxy S2, and an MHL cable for TV Viewing, and an optional OTG cable. The phone is a premium one, why not supply good accessories with it?

Rating ☆☆☆


Build Quality

Coming to the phone build quality, it's above average. Obviously, some might not find it that much good looking as it's competitor HTC One X, but still, I find it really beautifull. The fake aluminium strip running on the sides of phone is good and looks great, but quality of the same is not
that great. The back panel is polycarbonate (not just ordinary plastic), and is quite flexible, seems like it won't break apart easily. Removing it somewhat tricky, and needs you to literally force it to come off, which some might do hesitantly.

The back, after removing the cover is plain, with two slots each for Micro SIM (yes, micro sim ) and a Micro SD Card slot (inbuilt memory is 16GB for international version). The battery is large enough to make this beast run through day of moderate to heavy usage, and is labled 2100 mAH. Also, there is a speaker on the back with the Camera and an LED Flash.

Front looks are just plain awesome. Simplicity, at it's best. Three dark circles are visible on the right of the speaker phone (if you bought the Marble White Version), which are Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor and a 1.9MP Camera (I'll talk about it later). The screen looks gorgeous on white plastic, and so does it perform. The home button is OK,
and sometimes it feels hard to move from all touchy screen and touch buttons to a hardware button, but it's alright.

Rating ☆☆☆☆


Screen

Ok here comes the best (and the worst too, more about it later) part. The screen is gorgeous. Literally beautiful. It's a 4.8" 720P Super AMOLED screen with Pentile Matrix (Doesn't really matter in real world usage). The clarity is great, and you can read every bit of text clearly without even zooming in sometimes. The colour reproduction is a bit on warmer side. Colours are "artificially" saturated, and enhanced, which is evident when you are taking a photo
and you realise that the colours displayed on the screen is much sharper than the actual colour of the artifact (lol). The new protection, Corning's Gorrila Glass 2 works well, and I literally tried to scratch it with my keys (lightly, not with force ) but it just slid on the screen with no visible scratches. Corning claims that it's 20% thinner and about the same tough than earlier glasses.



The screen is a very good companion if you browse a lot. S3 has a neat feature of changing the brightness level of browser itself, for optimal viewing, which does not change the brightness of the whole phone UI. So you can enjoy the web, with the crisp 720P display, text can't look any better, it's crisp and easy to read, no strain on the eye what so ever.

Overall, the screen is great, but due to some issues (more on it later), I'll rate it down 1 star.

Rating ☆☆☆☆½


User Interface

Again, comes a two faced part. The UI, TouchWiz UI given by Samsung is very polished and allows in depth control of the device with plenty of settings which can be manually tweaked. The animations are slick, gestures are nice and overall it's a great experience. It DOES look like a premium device with TouchWiz over it. I tried a couple of launchers (NOVA, APEX), they just don't cut it, but then it's totally my opinion.



The new Task manager and recent apps change is welcomed, and is quite polished. Simply swipe to remove the recent apps, and easy access to Task manager by long pressing Home button is a plus.

The Notification centre is a great improvement over S2. The toggles are now more in mumber, and can toggle pretty much anything you want just by a touch of your finger. WiFi, GPS, Sound, Screen Rotation, Power Saving, Notification, Mobile Data, Bluetooth, Driving Mode, and Sync. These things can be toggled easily without going into settings, for the other people, who like to tinkle with settings frequently, Samsung added a shortcut on the Notification Tray itself for the Settings.



The App drawer is fluid, with no lags or jitters at all. It houses Apps and Widgets in different drawers, and and a small addition here is you can toggle between all apps and the downlaoded ones with a button. Moreover, scrolling to the end of list in App drawer doesn't take you to the Widgets drawer as in stock ICS.



Settings section has a few quick toggles too, doesn't really adds up the aceesibility, but still they are there.

Overall, I will give this User Interface a rating of 1.5 less star, because of an issue (discussed later).

Rating ☆☆☆½


Camera

No words for this masterpiece. Great piece of work by Samsung here. The clarity is unmatched, video recording is swift, and taking photos while recording is also there (lol @ HTC gimmicks). I will post a sample photo and a video soon. But believe me, it's amazing.



The camera settings are very much detailed, with the following photos showing each and every settings ^^

Rating ☆☆☆☆½


Browsing

Browsing, is a bliss on this phone, with a Super AMOLED 720P screen at the disposal, the crisp text, I can't ask any more. The proprietary browser is great, renders pages fast enough, and doesn't lagg when zooming in and out of a heavy flash page like YouTube. Video playback inside the browser is great, although interacting with flash is sometimes a PIA, but still, it works (ohh, Apple).



Default browser also supports Tabs, Incognito Browsing and different Brightness settings from that of the phone itself. A small amount of tweaking is still required, just short of 5 stars in my opinion.

Rating ☆☆☆☆½


Messaging

Messaging with such a large screen, is bound to be good with the equally large keyboard at hand. Portrait typing is a bliss, although landscape mode is kind of bad, because of buttons getting smaller in length but getting bigger in width. The defualt messenger does a great job, sorting out messages, threaded view is awesome.

Unlike many other phones, the messaging app has tweakable settings on how will the conversation be displayed, you can choose the blips, background and much more from the messaging app itslef.

Overall, a rating of 5 is justified, but there's still room for improvement.

Rating ☆☆☆☆☆



Battery

The battery is OK, better than most Dual Core Smartphones out there like iPhone 4s and even S2. It's rated 2100 mAH and can run through a day of heavy usage, like WiFi browsing, calling, playing games occasionally, and just tinkering around with settings. Samsung has done a great job adding a Battery Percentage option, for those of you skeptical about the correct amount of juice left in your phone. No rooting or custom roms are required for this option to work.

Overall, the battery will undoubtedly get 5 stars rating from me.

Rating ☆☆☆☆☆


Sound

The sound quality of the device is good enough for a normal audiophile like me. The loudspeaker is loud enough to produce sound when a call comes, or when music is playing. The bundled earphones are great, if not the best. Bass output is good, vocal clarity is above average. The equaliser settings in the default Music Player gets the job done, but still lack precision.

Overall a good experience, but it makes me ask for more.

Rating ☆☆☆☆½



Calling

A phone was intended to call, always. And S3, does it pretty well. The speaker output is very loud, and sometimes I have to keep it away from my ear (lol). But I prefer to use 3/4th setting of the max volume of the speaker, which is adequete enough for most users.



Signal Reception is bad. I mean it, BAD. It shows 1 bar in my room, tucked in the back of my house, where other phones show around 2-3. Call drop is very rare, but call quality is best nontheless.

Rating ☆☆☆☆


Benchmarks

Here are some synthetic benchmarks for those who care -





Problems

Here comes the problematic part. Throughout my usage, I have found some problems, which may be small, but it DOES matter to me especially when I am buying the Best Phone around in the market.

>The screen ahs the biggest issue. When viewing a DARK or Black background, in a totally dark room, you will see some dark spots, some dots and some lines. These are pixels which are darker in colour than their other counterparts. I researched a little and found out that it a common problem in Super AMOLED phones.
I was dissapointed at first, but the thing, it is really not visible easily. You literally have to look for it, only then you can spot them. I contacted the Service Centre about this issue, but they didn't find any spots (obviously). So it's not something to cry about, but something which was very unexpected from a phone of this calibre.

>The TouchWiz launcher has an issue too. When using some heavy applications like Web Browser or heavy game, if I press the home button or back button to quit the app, the Home screen will come up, but the TouchWiz Launcher Redraws itself, which usually takes 2-3 seconds. In simple words, when I quit an app, it takes 2-3 seconds for the widgets on the home screen to re appear. This is a bad thing, especially with a phone supporting a
quad core processor and best in class GPU. Somewhat disspointed here too.

Although there is a fix which is available on xda, which requires you to root your phone and then edit services.jar file, but I am too skeptical to do that on my phone. For the end user, using a third party launcher like NOVA or APEX solves this problem to pretty much full extent.

>Hardware Home button is difficult to use sometimes.

>Back of the phone really prone to scratches, despite being made of good plastic.

>Charging time is high, compared to dad's Blackberyy Torch, takes a little bit more time to fully charge.

>Headphone jack can create problem for some third party headphones, where they do not get plugges in correctly in some cases.

>Some minor glitches in Gallery.


Verdict

The phone is amazing. True innovation, the term "Desinged for Humans" pretty much gets justified. No noticeable flaw in the phone (all the problems mentioned above can be fixed with software updates rolled out by Samsung). Camera is great, Calling is great, Screen is gorgeous. The price bracket is however a bit steep. You can easily find an HTC One X for around 32k, while Galaxy S3, at it's lowest can be found for about 37K. Sure it performs better than One X in all the benchmarks
I ran on it, but does it really justify the 5K price gap in the prices? That's your decision. I made mine, and I am happy about it.

Package ☆☆☆

Build Quality ☆☆☆☆

Screen ☆☆☆☆½

UI ☆☆☆½

Camera ☆☆☆☆½

Browsing ☆☆☆☆½

Messaging ☆☆☆☆☆

Battery ☆☆☆☆☆

Sound ☆☆☆☆½

Calling ☆☆☆☆

Overall ☆☆☆☆¼

And that's pretty much it. I will update the article as I keep on using the phone, so that it remains up to date and contains all the valid information about the phone.

All the ratings awarded above is totally subjected to my own opinion, this does not include any influence from any of the websites which did a review on this phone earlier. The ratings here should not be regarded as the ultimate deal breaker before you buy the phone. Refer to other articles on the web and then decide.

This article is a work of Anmol Sharma aka desiJATT, and it is allowed to use, copy, broadcast this review with my permission as an open article, and with proper credits given. I don't ask for more, and I won't.

[Vyom]

Whoa!! Review looks nice! But images are HUGE!!

Will post a more sensible reply after actually reading the review!

[Vyom]

"packaging was very basic, with the box being very small."

Lol.. same for me. When I got my phone (P500) I too thought it was too small. I guess companies have become more environmental conscious. Which is actually a good thing.

You didn't get a leather cover, which was a rather dissapoint with the phone of a high budget. But I think they expect you to shell more when you are willing to spend that much amount for the phone :/

Btw, you literally tried to scratch it with your keys! You are daring!

I am guessing you didn't got an external card since it have 16 GB internal memory?

PS: I liked the disclaimer! Do post some more hardware pics!

Your review was good. Professionally done. My rating for your review: ☆☆☆☆½

[desiJATT]

haha Thank you Vyom, it took my 3 hours from today's busy day.

Yes, there is no Micro SD card included. It's the internal memory, 16GB. And yes, I pretty much tried scratching it, but as I said, not with enough force, just some rubbing, but it slid over just like knife on butter. No scratches at all!

Thanks for your rating, I appreciate that I'll post more pics tomorrow.

[iittopper]

Nice review sir ! Wish i could get that phone but i guess i would be happy with my nokia 5233 til i complete btech

[rider]

Congrats.!!! for your new Galaxy S3

[Vyom]

haha Thank you Vyom, it took my 3 hours from today's busy day.

That was fast then! I remember when I put up a review of HTC Mozart it took me whole effing day!!

[desiJATT]

Nice review sir ! Wish i could get that phone but i guess i would be happy with my nokia 5233 til i complete btech

Congrats.!!! for your new Galaxy S3

Thanks guys

That was fast then! I remember when I put up a review of HTC Mozart it took me whole effing day!!

Haha maybe typing speed is the deciding factor here?

[RON28]

whoowwww nice review, keep it up...it would be good if you upload pics of camera...i want to see how it is how is WIFI connectivity?

[desiJATT]

WiFi connectivity is OK. My room, where dad's Blackberry disconnects from my WiFi, S3 disconnects a lot less, and shows 1 bar. But it does sometimes get disconnected, but the reconnect times are just plain awesome.

[Terabyte]

Extremely well written review And congrats on your purchase!

[desiJATT]

Thank you Terabyte

[xtremevicky]

Good review .

It was a user review more than a Geek's review.

Congrats mate

[amjath]

Congrats and nice review. BTW SD card is not included for S2 too. I suggest u to get a 32GB Class 10 MicroSD card.

[desiJATT]

Good review .

It was a user review more than a Geek's review.

Congrats mate

Dunno what do you mean by that Still I'll take it as a compliment.

Congrats and nice review. BTW SD card is not included for S2 too. I suggest u to get a 32GB Class 10 MicroSD card.

Will buy later, 16 GB is more than enough for me atm.

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Awesome Review Mate

[desiJATT]

Thanks Krishnandu

[xtremevicky]

Dunno what do you mean by that Still I'll take it as a compliment.

Well you wrote from a end user's point of view . Whatever you liked and felt incomplete comes as a end user rather than a Geek.

I dont care about the Benchamrks everyday but that 1-2 sec does matter to me.

[Usui1811]

First of all congrats for your new Samsung Galazy S3, ps: your phone is better than 99% of IN. xD

Secondly, great review !! Kudos. Well detailed with images and unbiased ratings. I have read the review of this phone quite many places and by quite many people and you hold an impressive place in all, its not much detailed based on the nerd-stuffs, but instead is useful for the people who just want to know how it works and not what makes it work.

[desiJATT]

Well you wrote from a end user's point of view . Whatever you liked and felt incomplete comes as a end user rather than a Geek.

I dont care about the Benchamrks everyday but that 1-2 sec does matter to me.

Exactly, that's why my ratings and other websites rating won't really match

First of all congrats for your new Samsung Galazy S3, ps: your phone is better than 99% of IN. xD

Secondly, great review !! Kudos. Well detailed with images and unbiased ratings. I have read the review of this phone quite many places and by quite many people and you hold an impressive place in all, its not much detailed based on the nerd-stuffs, but instead is useful for the people who just want to know how it works and not what makes it work.

Thank you

My main concern was to write a review for the end consumer, just like you pointed out, not just glorifying the great hardware underneath. The true feature of a phone is it's real world usablilty performance. Quad Cores really won't cut if a simple task takes long time to be completed. I Think, my mission is accomplished Thank you guys again.

[Usui1811]

I Think, my mission is accomplished

Totally agreed !!

[Zangetsu]

Congrats for S3 & good review..how much is the price?

also isn't the spelling wrong in weather widget "jullundur"?

[sach1000rt]

Signal reception can be solved by flashing the appropriate modems as suggested on xda forum. I think sammy is working on firmware update on those issues. And luckily i havent got any black spots on my screen.

[desiJATT]

Congrats for S3 & good review..how much is the price?

also isn't the spelling wrong in weather widget "jullundur"?

Stupid accu weather widget doesn't have updated name for my city, cant help it

Price was 36.5k locally.

Signal reception can be solved by flashing the appropriate modems as suggested on xda forum. I think sammy is working on firmware update on those issues. And luckily i havent got any black spots on my screen.

Lucky you are not having any spots Flashing a custom rom is out of question for many users out there including me. I might indulge in rooting and installing custom roms later on but not at the moment.

Where did you read that Samsung is working on an update for these issues? Post link please

[sach1000rt]

on same xda forum, thread with black spot issue - Galaxy S3 BLACK INK Spots HELP!! - xda-developers
thread with signal reception issue - samsung galaxy s3 signal problem - xda-developers

And thats the price i got it too.

[desiJATT]

That was the first thread i read when i googled my problem immediately after finding it out. Dissapointing at first, but not really a big problem.

And link for update news? I already know Jelly Bean is in developement, but any other update rolling out soon? Tell me about it.

[ECE0105]

Got myself a white one too. Yesterday. 36.9k in Bengaluru.
Haven't tried out all those Synthetic Benchmarks, but yeah, I am dissapointed with the Lag in the Touchwiz, specially since this is mentioned as the Best SmartPhone money can buy right now, by several of the geek sites...
I'm a first time Android user. Still getting a hang of things. I thought this was common to all, but after looking at this review, I guess my dissapointment was not unwarranted after all....

[furious_gamer]

Nice review.

BTW, My brother bought S3 a week ago and so i get a chance to use it for that weekend. So here's my short review on that, with my 2 days of complete, rough usage. I also used HTC One X for a week, which i borrowed from my colleague.

Build : HTC One X wins, without any doubt here. I don't like the same plasticy feel for a 37k phone. And the back cover was easily prone to scratches. He has to buy an Case for that, to make the surface scratch-free.

Package - Seriously, no cable for TV Viewing. I mean for 37k, they gave us some Sagar hotel dosa, but what we expected is an Start hotel dosa. Shitty package, and same as my I9003. WTF!!!

Screen - One word, Awesome! I love it and especially for games and movies.

UI - Same shitty, yet bit improved Samsung UI. Told my bro to update it, but he refused as he is very scared of installing new one.

Camera - Good. But you cannot declare it as excellent. Although, ability to take pictures while recording video is nice inclusion.

Browsing - Big screen, crispy and clear text make browsing a breeze.

Battery - Even with such medium-hard usage, it lasted for a day, which is more that good for me.

Sound - Good, but the loudspeaker is a bit crampy and not clear.

Calling - Good.

Overall : 4/5

Still i feel like, my brothers been ripped off. I advised him to go with HTC One X, but he is coherent in choosing S3, for no reason. And if i get a chance to buy one, i'd definitely go with One X.

[Dhirajthefreak]

Nice review S3 is way better than one x

[desiJATT]

Got myself a white one too. Yesterday. 36.9k in Bengaluru.
Haven't tried out all those Synthetic Benchmarks, but yeah, I am dissapointed with the Lag in the Touchwiz, specially since this is mentioned as the Best SmartPhone money can buy right now, by several of the geek sites...
I'm a first time Android user. Still getting a hang of things. I thought this was common to all, but after looking at this review, I guess my dissapointment was not unwarranted after all....

I too, started up as an android user with this phone. And dude, TouchWiz redraw will be fixed with coming Jelly Been update Almost all the problems at the moment will be fixed with the upcoming patch, so cheer it up!

Nice review.

BTW, My brother bought S3 a week ago and so i get a chance to use it for that weekend. So here's my short review on that, with my 2 days of complete, rough usage. I also used HTC One X for a week, which i borrowed from my colleague.

Build : HTC One X wins, without any doubt here. I don't like the same plasticy feel for a 37k phone. And the back cover was easily prone to scratches. He has to buy an Case for that, to make the surface scratch-free.

Package - Seriously, no cable for TV Viewing. I mean for 37k, they gave us some Sagar hotel dosa, but what we expected is an Start hotel dosa. Shitty package, and same as my I9003. WTF!!!

Screen - One word, Awesome! I love it and especially for games and movies.

UI - Same shitty, yet bit improved Samsung UI. Told my bro to update it, but he refused as he is very scared of installing new one.

Camera - Good. But you cannot declare it as excellent. Although, ability to take pictures while recording video is nice inclusion.

Browsing - Big screen, crispy and clear text make browsing a breeze.

Battery - Even with such medium-hard usage, it lasted for a day, which is more that good for me.

Sound - Good, but the loudspeaker is a bit crampy and not clear.

Calling - Good.

Overall : 4/5

Still i feel like, my brothers been ripped off. I advised him to go with HTC One X, but he is coherent in choosing S3, for no reason. And if i get a chance to buy one, i'd definitely go with One X.

Nice review S3 is way better than one x

Good short review mate Even I clarrified this in my review. One X vs S3, is totally a user's choice.