Samsung Galaxy S III Review from un-boxing seminar

The new Samsung Galaxy S3 has come out so I decided to review the unboxing of it from the launch event on May 3rd 2012. Overall, I'm looking forward to upgrading to the S3 because of the innovative way its user interface has been designed, however I am slightly cautious about some of the aspects of the S3 which I will explain later. The head of Samsung, MR J.K. Shin introduces the phone and tells us that it has a 4.8 inch screen with an 8 megapixel camera. The camera has such features as Burst shot, where you take a sequence of photos and put them together in a sequence; BestShot will be used to take several shots in quick succession and you will then be able to choose your favourite; and the standard Buddy Photo Share, where you can upload the pictures you've taken onto social networking sites.

Samsung claim that their battery life is "longer than the average smart-phones" with a total battery life of an incredible 790 hours, which is roughly a month without charge. However, this is a little hard for me to comprehend as my S2 lasts just under 3 days, whereas the specs claim that it lasts 710 hours which is about 29 days (according to this http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Samsung-Galaxy-S-II_id5106) compared to the S3 which is closer to 31 (according to this http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/New_Samsung_Galaxy?ID=1230). So I would estimate that the S3 will last about a week, if that.

Mister Shin goes on to say that the thickness of the new smart-phone is 8.6 millimetres and weighing in at 133 grams. The phone has elemental influences including water, pebbles, wind and leaves; with the design being inspired by pebbles and leaves creating its overall shape. It recognises your eye movement and stays on while you are looking at it which removes the need for the lock button and timed lock features. It also has a voice feature which plays music and turns the volume up or down, while understanding your intention to make a call. According to Mister Shin, the phone is designed to be a "human phone that understands you". Upon launch, it will be released in 145 countries and partnered with 296 mobile operators across the world which generates the largest amount of possible customers in Samsung Mobile's history.

When he takes the phone out of his pocket and displays it, he reveals a curved (very pebble like) design which I think would feel VERY comfortable in my own hands. The Vice President of European Telecommunications Operations at Samsung Electronics is introduced as Jean Daniel Ayme. He gives a rundown of more of the features on the S3. He expands on the fact that the phone stays awake whilst the user looks at the phone by saying that the name of the feature is Smart Stay which uses the screen-side camera to know whether you are looking at the phone or not.

The next feature that Ayme talks about is S-Voice which includes the first demonstration; I was surprised to not see screen-capture on the phone like Apple do to better demonstrate what the phone does. Because Samsung don't do this, it makes them look slightly unprofessional. However, the demonstration goes off without a hitch and he successfully wakes up the phone by saying, "Hi, Galaxy". The then asks "How is the weather in London?" and the phone seamlessly pulls up the 7 day forecast for London. He brings up the photo application in a similar fashion by saying "I want to take a picture" which then brings up the application. The phone understands a mere 8 languages, this is strange considering the phone is going to be released in more than 140 countries.

Now I come to the part where I'm slightly cautious about the phone's usability because people aren't used to doing what I'm about to tell you; when you select a text message, instead of going to a menu and selecting call; you can just raise the phone to your ear and it will automatically call the person who sent the message, this involves the motion sensor and the proximity sensor, which of course is far faster than going through a menu to do the same thing; but in my opinion, trying to simplify the user's experience has complicated the user interface because people aren't used to using features like that; although I can see the other argument which says that this action is easily learnable. This is just a short blog post so I'll summarise by saying that overall I am looking forward to this phone and can't wait to upgrade to it.