The Samsung Galaxy S III is a touchscreen-based, slate-format Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics. It sees additional software features, expanded hardware, and a redesigned physique than its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S II. The S III contains a quad-core processor, and employs an intelligent personal assistant (S Voice), eye-tracking ability, increased storage, and a wireless charging option. Depending on country, the 4.8-inch (120 mm) smartphone comes with different processors and RAM capacity, and 4G LTE support. The device was launched with Android 4.0.4 "Ice Cream Sandwich", and is in the process of being updated to Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean".
Following an eighteen-month development phase, Samsung unveiled the S III on 3 May 2012 in London.The device was released in 28 European and Middle Eastern countries on 29 May 2012, before being progressively released in other major markets in June 2012. Prior to release, 9 million pre-orders were placed by more than 100 carriers globally. The S III was released by approximately 300 carriers in nearly 150 countries at the end of July 2012. More than 20 million units of the S III were sold within the first 100 days of release.
Due to overwhelming demand and a manufacturing flaw in the blue version of the phone, there was an extensive shortage of the S III, especially in the United States. Nevertheless, the S III was well-received commercially and critically, with some technology commentators touting it as the "iPhone killer". It played a major role in boosting Samsung's record operating profit during the second quarter of 2012. As of October 2012[update], the Galaxy S III is a subject of a high-profile lawsuit between Samsung and Apple
Features
The Galaxy S III uses Google's Android mobile operating system, which was introduced commercially in 2008. Its TouchWiz "Nature UX" graphical user interface (GUI)—which is influenced by the "organic" customer trend—is more interactive than Samsung's previous GUIs, with the notable addition of the "Water Lux" effect, which produces ripples upon contact.To complement the TouchWiz interface, and as a response to Apple's Siri, the phone introduces S Voice, Samsung's intelligent personal assistant. S Voice can recognise eight languages including English, Korean and French. Based on Vlingo, S Voice enables the user to verbally control 20 functions such as playing a song, setting the alarm, or activating driving mode; it relies on Wolfram Alpha for online searches.
The S III comes with Android version 4.0.4, officially named "Ice Cream Sandwich", which became commercially available in March 2012 with the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus. Ice Cream Sandwich has a refined user interface, expanded camera capabilities, security features and connectivity. In mid-June 2012, Google unveiled Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean", which employs Google Now, a voice-assistant similar to S Voice, and incorporates other software changes. Samsung accommodated Jelly Bean in the S III by making last-minute hardware changes to the phone in some markets. In late September 2012, Jelly Bean updates have begun rolling out to S IIIs in selected European countries. The S III is also compatible with CyanogenMod 10, a custom firmware that replicates the characteristics of Jelly Bean.
The S III comes with a multitude of pre-installed applications including standard Android ones such as YouTube, Google+, Voice Search, Google Play, Gmail, Map, and Calendar, in addition to Samsung-specific apps such as ChatON, Game Hub, Video Hub, Social Hub and Navigation. To address the fact that iPhone users are reluctant to switch to Android because the OS is not compatible with iTunes, from June 2012 Samsung offers customers of its Galaxy series the Easy Phone Sync app to enable the transfer of music, photos, videos, podcasts and text messages from an iPhone to a Galaxy device.The user is able to access Google Play, a digital-distribution multimedia-content service exclusive to Android, to download applications, movies, music, TV programmes, games, books and magazines.
Apart from S Voice, Samsung has directed the bulk of the S III's marketing campaign towards the device's "smart" features, which facilitate improved human-device interactivity. These features include: "Direct Call", or the handset's ability to recognise when a user wants to talk to somebody instead of messaging them, if they bring the phone to their head; "Social Tag", a function that identifies and tags people in a photo and shares photos with them; and "Pop Up Play", which allows a video and other applications to occupy the screen at the same time. In addition, the S III can beam its screen to a TV or be used as a remote controller (AllShare Cast and Play) and share photos with people who are tagged in them (Buddy Photo Share). Other software features include Smart Alerts, Smart Stay, and S Beam.
The S III can access and play traditional media formats such as music, movies, TV programmes, audiobooks, and podcasts, and can sort its media library alphabetically by song title, artist, album, playlist, folder, and genre. One notable feature of the S III's music player is Music Square, which analyses a song's intensity and ranks the song by mood so that the user can play songs according to their current emotional state.With the release of the S III, Samsung debuted its proprietary music management and download application called "Music Hub", designed to compete with Apple's iTunes, iCloud, and iTunes Match services. Music Hub's music catalogue contains over 19 million songs.
The S III was the first smartphone to support Voice Over LTE with the introduction of HD Voice service in South Korea. The phone enables video calling with its 1.9 MP front-facing camera, and with support for the apt-X codec, improves Bluetooth-headset connectivity. Texting on the S III does not embody any new significant features from the S II. Speech-to-text is aided by the Vlingo and Google's voice-recognition assistant. Not unlike other Android devices, there are a multitude of third-party typing applications available that could complement the S III's stock keyboard.
On 18 June 2012, Samsung announced that the S III would have a version with enterprise software under the company's Samsung Approved For Enterprise (SAFE) programme, an initiative that facilitates the use of private Android devices by professional employees, also known as "Bring Your Own Device".The enterprise S III version would support AES-256 bit encryption, VPN and Mobile Device Management functionality, and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. It was scheduled to be released in the U.S. in July 2012. The enterprise version was expected to penetrate the business market dominated by Research in Motion's BlackBerry, following the release of similar enterprise versions of the Galaxy Note, Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Tab line of tablet computers.
A separate "Developer Edition" of the S III was made available from Samsung's Developer Portal. It came with an unlockable bootloader to allow the user to modify the phone's software.
Hardware and design
The Galaxy S III has a polycarbonate plastic chassis measuring 136.6 mm (5.38 in) long, 70.7 mm (2.78 in) wide, and 8.6 mm (0.34 in) thick, with the device weighing 133 grams (4.7 oz). Samsung abandoned the rectangular design of the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II, and instead incorporated round corners and curved edges, reminiscent of the Galaxy Nexus.The phone is available in two basic color options: "Marble White" and "Pebble Blue"; however, "Pebble Blue" has reportedly been altered to a metallic blue-grey shade. A "Garnet Red" model was made available exclusively to U.S. carrier AT&T on 15 July 2012. "Sapphire Black", "Titanium Gray" and "Amber Brown" will also be available.
The S III comes in two distinct variations that differ primarily in the internal hardware. The international S III version has Samsung's Exynos 4 Quad system on a chip (SoC) containing a 1.4 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 central processing unit (CPU) and an ARM Mali-400 MP graphics processing unit (GPU).According to Samsung, the Exynos 4 Quad doubles the performance of the Exynos 4 Dual used on the S II, while using 20 percent less power.Samsung had also released several 4G LTE versions—4G facilitates higher-speed mobile connection compared to 3G—in selected countries to exploit the corresponding communications infrastructures that exist in those markets. Most of these versions use Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 SoC featuring a dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU and an Adreno 225 GPU. The South Korean and Australia versions are a hybrid of the international and 4G-capable versions.
The S III has a maximum of 2 GB of RAM, depending on model.The phone comes with either 16 or 32 GB of internal storage, with a 64 GB version to be available internationally; additionally, microSDXC storage offers a further 64 GB for a potential total of 128 GB. Moreover, 50 GB of space is offered for two years on Dropbox—a cloud storage service—for purchasers of the device, doubling rival HTC's 25 GB storage for the same duration.[49]
The S III's HD Super AMOLED display measures 4.8 inches (120 mm) on the diagonal, making it Samsung's third largest phone display, only exceeded by the Galaxy Note's 5.3 inches (130 mm) and the Galaxy Note II's 5.5 inches (140 mm). With a 1,280×720-pixel (720p) resolution, its pixel per inch (PPI, a measure of pixel density) is a relatively high 306, which is accommodated by the removal one of the three subpixels—red, green and blue—in each pixel to create a PenTile matrix-display; consequently, it does not share the "Plus" suffix found on the S II's Super AMOLED Plus display. The glass used for the display is the damage-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 2.
Back view of the Japanese S III model, SC-06D
The S III has an 8-megapixel camera similar to that of the Galaxy S II. It can take 3,264×2,448 resolution photos and record videos in 1,920×1,080-pixel (1080p) resolution. Samsung improved the camera's software over that of its predecessor to include zero shutter lag, and Burst Mode and Best Shot, which work together to quickly take numerous photos before the best-judged frame is selected. The phone can also take pictures while recording videos. The rear-facing camera is complemented by a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera that can record 720p videos.
In addition to the 4.8-inch (120 mm) touchscreen, the S III has several physical user inputs including a home button located below the screen, a volume key on the left side and a power/lock key on the right.At the top there is a 3.5-millimetre (0.14 in) TRRS headphone jack and one of the two microphones on the S III; the other is located below the home button. The S III is advertised as having an MHL port that can be used both as a micro-USB On-The-Go port, and for connecting the phone to HDMI devices. However, a retailer later discovered that Samsung had made a modification to the electronics of the port such that only the adapter made specifically for this model by Samsung could be used.
The S III's li-ion 2,100 mAh battery is said to have a 790-hour standby time when using 3G (900 hours in 2G) and 11 hours of talk time in 3G (21 hours in 2G). Built into the battery is near field communication connectivity, which allows users to share map directions and YouTube videos quickly using Wi-Fi Direct (through Android Beam), and perform non-touch payments at shops that employ specially-equipped NFC cash registers.[72] To help minimize battery consumption, Samsung has introduced "Smart Stay", an ability to track a user's eyes and turn off whenever the person is not looking at it.The battery can be wirelessly charged using a special charging pad (sold separately) that utilizes magnetic resonance to produce a magnetic field through which electricity could be transferred.
CNET TV torture -tested an S III by cooling it to 24 °F (−4 °C), placing it in a heat-proof box and heating it to 190 °F (88 °C), and submerging it in water—the S III survived all three tests. The phone also did not exhibit any scratches when a key was repeatedly scraped against the display.
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