CNET Asia gave the Galaxy S a favorable review with a score of 8.4/10. The Galaxy S was compared to current high-end Android-based phones such as the HTC Desire, Xperia X10, Nexus One, and smartphones using different operating systems like the iPhone 4, which runs iOS, and HTC HD2, which runs Windows Mobile in CNET Asia.[15]
GSMArena.com described the Galaxy S as having "perfect audio quality," claiming the phone's superior all-round performance made it a "new leader of the Android pack."[16]
TIME listed the Galaxy S as #2 device in "Top 10 Gadgets" of 2010, praising its Super AMOLED display.[17]
The phone was criticized by some reviewers for sub-par GPS performance. Anandtech, reviewing the Epic 4G variant, said "the phone will take an inordinate amount of time to determine your actual location, and/or it won’t pinpoint your location very accurately."[18] Engadget described the GPS in the Vibrant and Captivate variants as "utterly broken and non-functional... this is a problem for which there's no reasonable explanation why it made it all the way to retail devices."[19] Samsung released an application for the Captivate and Vibrant variants only that resets the phone's GPS settings to factory defaults.[20] TechRadar acknowledged GPS faults in the Galaxy S, and stated that these have been fixed in the Google Nexus S.[21]
The Galaxy S4 received mostly positive reviews. GigaOM's Tofel says he would recommend the S4 "without hesitation" and says that it's "Samsung's defining phone".[49] ReadWrite's Rowinski described the phone as a "solid smartphone," but criticised Samsung's use of "bloatware, pre-loaded apps and features that you will likely never use," but called the S4 "a first-rate smartphone."[50] Time's McCraken says the S4 is a smartphone with everything, it has the biggest screen and the most built-in features. He wishes the S4 marks the end of Samsung's plan to just add too many new features with its flagship smartphones.[51]
Technology journalist Walt Mossberg described the S4 as "a good phone, just not a great one". Mossberg wrote "while I admire some of its features, overall, it isn’t a game-changer." Mossberg criticized the software as "especially weak" and "often gimmicky, duplicative of standard Android apps, or, in some cases, only intermittently functional." He urged readers to "consider the more polished-looking, and quite capable, HTC One, rather than defaulting to the latest Samsung."[52]
Consumer Reports named the Galaxy S4 as the top smartphone due to its screen quality, multitasking support, and built-in IR blaster.[53]
Despite only using about 1 GB more than the S III, critics noted that about half of the internal storage on the S4's 16 GB model was taken up by its system software; leaving only 8 to 9.15 GB for the storage of downloaded apps (some of which cannot be moved to the SD card) and other data. Samsung initially stated that the space was required for the S4's new features, but following a report regarding the issue on the BBC series Watchdog, Samsung stated that it would review the possibility of optimising the S4's operating system to use less local drive space in a future update.[54][55][56] Storage optimizations were brought in an update first released in June 2013, which frees 80 MB of internal storage, and restores the ability to move apps to the device's SD card.[57]
Commercial reception
It reached 10 million pre-orders from retailers in the first two weeks after its announcement.[58] In the United States, this prompted Samsung to announce that due to larger than expected demand, the roll out of devices on U.S. Carriers Sprint and T-Mobile will be slower than expected.[59]
The S4 sold 4 million in 4 days and 10 million in 27 days; this is the fastest selling smartphone in Samsung's history and the fastest selling Android device in history.[60][61] The Samsung Galaxy S III sold 4 million units in 21 days, theSamsung Galaxy S II took 55 days, and the Samsung Galaxy S took 85 days.[62]
Samsung shipped more than 20 million Galaxy S4 smartphones by June 30, which is around 1.7 times faster than the Samsung Galaxy S III.[63]
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.[62] 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.[63] A "Garnet Red" model was made available exclusively to U.S. carrier AT&T on 15 July 2012.[64] "Sapphire Black", "Titanium Gray" and "Amber Brown" will also be available.[65]
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).[66] 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.[67] 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.[68] Most of these versions use Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 SoC featuring a dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU and an Adreno 225 GPU.[69] The South Korean and Australia versions are a hybrid of the international and 4G-capable versions.[7]
The S III has a maximum of 2 GB of RAM, depending on model.[68] 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.[70] 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.[53]
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 5.55 inches (141 mm).[71] With a 1,280×720-pixel (720p) resolution, its pixel per inch (PPI, a measure of pixel density) is a relatively high 306,[70] 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.[72] The glass used for the display is the damage-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 2.[62]
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.[73] The phone can also take pictures while recording videos.[72] The rear-facing camera is complemented by a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera that can record 720p videos.[73] The phone has LED flash and autofocus.[74][75]
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 or 11 hours of talk time on 3G, compared to 900 hours in standby and 21 hours of talk time on 2G.[48] Built into the battery isnear 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.[77] 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.[39] 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.[78]
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.[79] However, Android Authority later carried out a drop test with the purpose of comparing the Samsung Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5. The screen on the S III shattered on the second drop test, while the iPhone received only minor scuffs and scratches on the metal composite frame after three drop tests.[80]
Security issues
Software
On September 19, 2012, security researchers demonstrated during Pwn2Own, a computer hacking contest held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, that the S III can be hacked via NFC, allowing attackers to download all data from the phone.
Hardware
In December 2012, two hardware issues were reported by users of the Samsung Galaxy S III: A vulnerability of the Exynos SoC allowed malicious apps to gain root privileges even on unrooted devices, and a spontaneous bricking of the unit approximately six months after activation. Samsung has been replacing the mainboards of affected units under warranty. In January 2013, Samsung released a firmware update that corrected both issues.[84]
Hardware reliability
Additionally, it is reported that there are 3 incidents of an allegedly exploding Samsung product in the past two years. In 2012, a Dublin man said that his Galaxy S3 exploded in his car, and this past February a South Korean man alleged that his Galaxy Note's battery (which was not attached to the phone at the time) caught fire.
Model variants
On 16 May 2012, NTT DoCoMo announced that they would sell an LTE model of the S III, using a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 SoC with an integrated on-die LTE-modem. As of February 2013, NTT DoCoMo is selling an NTT-branded S IIIα (SC-03E) variant.
On 30 May 2012, several Canadian carriers announced that they also would sell an LTE model of the S III with the model number SGH-i747 and the same specifications as the one for NTT DoCoMo.[88] Within a week, on 4 June 2012, T-Mobile US and AT&T[89] announced that they would sell the same versions of the S III as the Canadian carriers announced on 30 May. Verizon, Sprint, Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile USA and U.S. Cellular sell a similar version with CDMA support. Thus the design and name of the Galaxy S III for North America is retained from the international version, marking a deviation from the previous customization of design and name for different carriers of the previous Galaxy S models.
The South Korean LTE models—considered the ultimate Galaxy S III model—share the 4G LTE support and 2 GB of RAM of the North American and Japanese versions, but come with the international version's Samsung Exynos 4 Quad SoC, in addition to the T-DMB module and antenna; this compelled Samsung to increase the model's thickness to 9 millimetres (0.35 in). A similar quad-core 4G LTE version of the S III is to be released in Australia.
In September 2012 Samsung confirmed the launch of the 4G version of Galaxy S III (along with 4G versions of Galaxy Note II and Galaxy Note 10.1) in the Nordic countries in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The GT-I9300 and GT-I9305 models are certified Miracast sources.
The Samsung Galaxy S III Mini is a smaller phone that shares the design and software of the S III but has different internal hardware.
GSMArena.com described the Galaxy S as having "perfect audio quality," claiming the phone's superior all-round performance made it a "new leader of the Android pack."[16]
TIME listed the Galaxy S as #2 device in "Top 10 Gadgets" of 2010, praising its Super AMOLED display.[17]
The phone was criticized by some reviewers for sub-par GPS performance. Anandtech, reviewing the Epic 4G variant, said "the phone will take an inordinate amount of time to determine your actual location, and/or it won’t pinpoint your location very accurately."[18] Engadget described the GPS in the Vibrant and Captivate variants as "utterly broken and non-functional... this is a problem for which there's no reasonable explanation why it made it all the way to retail devices."[19] Samsung released an application for the Captivate and Vibrant variants only that resets the phone's GPS settings to factory defaults.[20] TechRadar acknowledged GPS faults in the Galaxy S, and stated that these have been fixed in the Google Nexus S.[21]
The Galaxy S4 received mostly positive reviews. GigaOM's Tofel says he would recommend the S4 "without hesitation" and says that it's "Samsung's defining phone".[49] ReadWrite's Rowinski described the phone as a "solid smartphone," but criticised Samsung's use of "bloatware, pre-loaded apps and features that you will likely never use," but called the S4 "a first-rate smartphone."[50] Time's McCraken says the S4 is a smartphone with everything, it has the biggest screen and the most built-in features. He wishes the S4 marks the end of Samsung's plan to just add too many new features with its flagship smartphones.[51]
Technology journalist Walt Mossberg described the S4 as "a good phone, just not a great one". Mossberg wrote "while I admire some of its features, overall, it isn’t a game-changer." Mossberg criticized the software as "especially weak" and "often gimmicky, duplicative of standard Android apps, or, in some cases, only intermittently functional." He urged readers to "consider the more polished-looking, and quite capable, HTC One, rather than defaulting to the latest Samsung."[52]
Consumer Reports named the Galaxy S4 as the top smartphone due to its screen quality, multitasking support, and built-in IR blaster.[53]
Despite only using about 1 GB more than the S III, critics noted that about half of the internal storage on the S4's 16 GB model was taken up by its system software; leaving only 8 to 9.15 GB for the storage of downloaded apps (some of which cannot be moved to the SD card) and other data. Samsung initially stated that the space was required for the S4's new features, but following a report regarding the issue on the BBC series Watchdog, Samsung stated that it would review the possibility of optimising the S4's operating system to use less local drive space in a future update.[54][55][56] Storage optimizations were brought in an update first released in June 2013, which frees 80 MB of internal storage, and restores the ability to move apps to the device's SD card.[57]
Commercial reception
It reached 10 million pre-orders from retailers in the first two weeks after its announcement.[58] In the United States, this prompted Samsung to announce that due to larger than expected demand, the roll out of devices on U.S. Carriers Sprint and T-Mobile will be slower than expected.[59]
The S4 sold 4 million in 4 days and 10 million in 27 days; this is the fastest selling smartphone in Samsung's history and the fastest selling Android device in history.[60][61] The Samsung Galaxy S III sold 4 million units in 21 days, theSamsung Galaxy S II took 55 days, and the Samsung Galaxy S took 85 days.[62]
Samsung shipped more than 20 million Galaxy S4 smartphones by June 30, which is around 1.7 times faster than the Samsung Galaxy S III.[63]
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.[62] 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.[63] A "Garnet Red" model was made available exclusively to U.S. carrier AT&T on 15 July 2012.[64] "Sapphire Black", "Titanium Gray" and "Amber Brown" will also be available.[65]
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).[66] 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.[67] 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.[68] Most of these versions use Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 SoC featuring a dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU and an Adreno 225 GPU.[69] The South Korean and Australia versions are a hybrid of the international and 4G-capable versions.[7]
The S III has a maximum of 2 GB of RAM, depending on model.[68] 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.[70] 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.[53]
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 5.55 inches (141 mm).[71] With a 1,280×720-pixel (720p) resolution, its pixel per inch (PPI, a measure of pixel density) is a relatively high 306,[70] 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.[72] The glass used for the display is the damage-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 2.[62]
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.[73] The phone can also take pictures while recording videos.[72] The rear-facing camera is complemented by a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera that can record 720p videos.[73] The phone has LED flash and autofocus.[74][75]
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 or 11 hours of talk time on 3G, compared to 900 hours in standby and 21 hours of talk time on 2G.[48] Built into the battery isnear 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.[77] 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.[39] 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.[78]
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.[79] However, Android Authority later carried out a drop test with the purpose of comparing the Samsung Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5. The screen on the S III shattered on the second drop test, while the iPhone received only minor scuffs and scratches on the metal composite frame after three drop tests.[80]
Security issues
Software
On September 19, 2012, security researchers demonstrated during Pwn2Own, a computer hacking contest held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, that the S III can be hacked via NFC, allowing attackers to download all data from the phone.
Hardware
In December 2012, two hardware issues were reported by users of the Samsung Galaxy S III: A vulnerability of the Exynos SoC allowed malicious apps to gain root privileges even on unrooted devices, and a spontaneous bricking of the unit approximately six months after activation. Samsung has been replacing the mainboards of affected units under warranty. In January 2013, Samsung released a firmware update that corrected both issues.[84]
Hardware reliability
Additionally, it is reported that there are 3 incidents of an allegedly exploding Samsung product in the past two years. In 2012, a Dublin man said that his Galaxy S3 exploded in his car, and this past February a South Korean man alleged that his Galaxy Note's battery (which was not attached to the phone at the time) caught fire.
Model variants
On 16 May 2012, NTT DoCoMo announced that they would sell an LTE model of the S III, using a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 SoC with an integrated on-die LTE-modem. As of February 2013, NTT DoCoMo is selling an NTT-branded S IIIα (SC-03E) variant.
On 30 May 2012, several Canadian carriers announced that they also would sell an LTE model of the S III with the model number SGH-i747 and the same specifications as the one for NTT DoCoMo.[88] Within a week, on 4 June 2012, T-Mobile US and AT&T[89] announced that they would sell the same versions of the S III as the Canadian carriers announced on 30 May. Verizon, Sprint, Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile USA and U.S. Cellular sell a similar version with CDMA support. Thus the design and name of the Galaxy S III for North America is retained from the international version, marking a deviation from the previous customization of design and name for different carriers of the previous Galaxy S models.
The South Korean LTE models—considered the ultimate Galaxy S III model—share the 4G LTE support and 2 GB of RAM of the North American and Japanese versions, but come with the international version's Samsung Exynos 4 Quad SoC, in addition to the T-DMB module and antenna; this compelled Samsung to increase the model's thickness to 9 millimetres (0.35 in). A similar quad-core 4G LTE version of the S III is to be released in Australia.
In September 2012 Samsung confirmed the launch of the 4G version of Galaxy S III (along with 4G versions of Galaxy Note II and Galaxy Note 10.1) in the Nordic countries in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The GT-I9300 and GT-I9305 models are certified Miracast sources.
The Samsung Galaxy S III Mini is a smaller phone that shares the design and software of the S III but has different internal hardware.