The most-awaited event in months - Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012 - saw the Korean tech giant unveil what the whole world has been waiting for - Galaxy S3.
JK Shin, president and head of Samsung IT and Mobile, wowed the world by introducing Galaxy S3. The specs, we must admit, are impressive. Very impressive. People have been expecting a lot from the third generation Galaxy smartphone and Samsung delivered something extraordinary to meet the expectations.
Let's check out the impressive specs and some of the most innovative features that have shaped Galaxy S3.
Processor
As expected, Galaxy S3 is going to boast of quad-core Exynos 4 Quad 1.4GHz processor. It's going to give Galaxy S3 the speed boost it needs and it should make iPhone 4S eat its dust. Also packed is Mali 400 MP GPU.
Battery
The device packs 2,100mAH battery. It should make the device last hours of intensive e usage.
Camera
Galaxy S3 is equipped with 8-megapixel camera just like Galaxy S2 (sorry, those who were expecting 12-megapixel camera will have to wait longer). But the camera system is impressive to say the least. It features zero shutter lag while a burst feature lets you take up to 20 shots in one go, at a blazing fast rate of 3.3 frames per second. Samsung claims the shutter speed is "faster than ever," an apparent dig at its rivals.
Other features include Face Zoom and Face Slideshow, Group Tagging, and Face Tagging.
The front-facing camera for video chat packs 1.9-megapixel.
Display
Galaxy S3 boasts of humongous HD Super AMOLED 4.8-inch screen (720x1280 pixels resolution) at 306 ppi (iPhone 4S Retina display has 326 ppi). The phone "sees you," "listens to you" and "understands what you want" by monitoring your eye movement, apparently.
"4.8-inches is a big screen, but we were also able to narrow down the bezel," Samsung said.
Form Factor
The handset's "inspired by water, wind, leaves and pebbles" (talk about pleasing Mother Nature). Galaxy S3 is 8.6 mm thin (dimensions: 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.55 mm) and weighs 133g (iPhone 5, though, may break the 8mm mark with the rumored in-cell touch panel technology).
The device is "inspired by nature" and "designed for humans."
OS and User Interface
Galaxy S3's user interface is intuitive and fluid-like. Over Android 4.0 OS (Ice Cream Sandwich), Samsung has adopted "Nature UX TouchWiz," which uses natural sounds and live wallpapers.
Samsung's new lock-screen now comes with a beautiful aquatic ripple effect, pleasing to both the eyes and ears.
Software/Applications
Galaxy S3 has been created to be "effortlessly smart, intuitively simple," Shin said. And what makes it smart and simple is S-Voice, a potential Siri-killer. The intuitive voice control application apparently knows what you want, before you want it (almost telepathic, eh)?
Jean-Daniel Ayme, Samsung VP Europe telecom operations, said the Galaxy S3 is a phone that listen, sees and responds to our intentions. "That's the magic and the promise of the Galaxy S3," Ayme said.
The S-Voice, which goes way beyond the existing voice recognition features, is like a good friend that listens to you, and responds to you effectively and quickly. It can organize your schedules, answer a call, make a call, play music requests, check the weather, type out messages, etc. You don't need to command it. Just ask it. And it'll do. And yes, S-Voice can also take photos for you. We bet Siri can't do that.
Thanks to S-Voice, the phone will "wake up" when you chat to it, while the front-facing camera has face detection feature that will make the device sleep "when you sleep."
S-Voice supports up to five personalized commands and listens to our natural language. It currently supports eight languages, including American English, British English, Italian, Germany, French, Latin Spanish and Korean.
Galaxy S3 also has a new feature called Smart Stay, which recognizes your eye movements so that it knows when you're watching the screen and stops the phone from going to sleep.
The Direct Call feature is also neat. Simply lift the phone to your ear and the phone will automatically call the contact number that's on display. It's almost like magic.
The device also has a Pop up Play feature, which allows you to reduce a video to a draggable thumbnail and play it on top of any app.
On the other hand, the Smart Alert feature makes sure you don't miss anything. The feature will fill you in on all things you missed (calls, messages, weather alerts, notifications, etc) when you're not using the device.
Deep Social Network Integration
Samsung encourages you to get a real social life and Galaxy S3 helps you move forward towards that goal - it "enables us to share our lives with the ones we love the most." Images can be tagged with your friends' names, even as deep integration with Facebook and other social network favorites makes sure that you (or your friends) don't miss out on anything.
Hardware and Connectivity
Samsung has introduced S-Beam in Galaxy S3, which merges NFC and Wi-Fi for instant video sharing.
"It's even more powerful and faster through WiFi Direct. It connects through NFC, tying together the same Wi-Fi network for some hearty multimedia sharing," Samsung said.
Other connectivity features include Bluetooth 4.0 and DLNA.
Hardware specs include 16/32/64 GB storage options, microSD expansion and 1GB RAM.
Release
Galaxy S3 will launch in 145 countries and will be supported by 296 wireless operators. It'll hit European markets at the end of May (29) and the 4G version will come to the US in June.
Color Options
Galaxy S3 will come in two color offerings as anticipated - Pebble Blue and Marble White. Sweet. Plain black and white smartphones are getting a tad boring.
Price
Samsung hasn't announced the price of Galaxy S3 yet but we don't expect it to pricier than Apple's iPhone.
Conclusion
Samsung's got a potential winner in its hands. There's plenty to like in Galaxy S3 and with S Voice, Smart Stay, S Beam and Exynos 4 Quad chip, Galaxy S3 can take on iPhone 4S anytime.
In conclusion, Thursday's Samsung Mobile Unpacked event sends out a strong message to the whole world - Samsung is not only the world's No.1 smartphone maker but also it has a potential iPhone-killer in its hands. So if Galaxy S3 sends Apple scurrying back to the drawing boards, we won't be surprised.
