Samsung has unleashed their new powerhouse the Galaxy SII on all of the major carriers. This phone packs a dual core, 1.5 GHz processor and great battery life. Pack in the Verizon Wireless 4G Network, NFC and up too 32GB of internals storage and you will see why so many people cant wait to pick one up. Check out my review below and see why that even though this is a great phone, I’m still torn as to whether I could use this as a daily device.
Let’s jump right into the review shall we.
SCREEN:
The screen on the Galaxy SIII is a 4.8in HD Super AMOLED Capacitive touch screen. With a resolution of 720 x 1280 this is one of the best screens for clarity that is out there right now. The pictures are clear and crisp and very life-like. The GSIII is capable of 17 million colors. This is the largest screen on a cell phone we have reviewed to this date. This screen is great for keeping your kids entertained and works well for watching movies and YouTube video’s.
CAMERA:
The GSIII has both a front and rear facing camera. The rear facing camera is a 8MP HD camera with a F 2.6 aperture camera. This camera has a multitude of features such as Back-illuminated Sensor, CMOS image sensor, Exposure control, multi shot, and HDR. With this camera you can pretty much replace your stand alone camera and be happy with the results. The video recorder is capable of taking 1080P video’s and 30FPS. The front facing camera is 1.9MP and works great for the “duck face” Facebook pictures and video chat’s.
BATTERY LIFE:
There is a 2100 mAh battery that is reported to be good for 15 hours of talk time and 8 days stand-by time. In daily use I was able to get between 10-12 hours out of a single charge. Most of my use if a 4G/Wi-Fi mix. I stream music heavily and also listen to said music over bluetooth. With that said, this is great battery life from a standard battery on an Android device. The battery has the built-in NFC chip. No extended batteries are offered yet on the VZW website, but you can pick up a second standard battery for $40 if you are worried about battery life. For those of you who like to use eBay, be advised that the cheaper knock off batteries may not have the NFC built-in and you would be cheating yourself out of a feature you may need.
UNDER THE HOOD:
The Samsung Galaxy SIII is powered by a 1.5 MHz Dual Core Snapdragon S4 Processor. This processor is what give the phone its great speed and decent battery life. Even with the addition of TouchWiz on top of the Android 4.0 the GSIII runs with no lag. The phone comes with either 16GB or 32GB of built-in storage with the option of up to a 64GB microSD card. You could have up to a total of 96GB of storage on your phone. There is also 2GB of RAM to keep your phone running smoothly no matter what you throw at it. The GSIII is shipped running Android 4.0.4. For those of you who like the food names, this is Ice Cream Sandwich. Samsung has also used their TouchWiz “theme” over top of the stock Android experience.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Two words, Awesome Phone. Samsung has a phone that runs fast, stable, and does what people want. Priced at $199 for the 16GB model and $249 for the 32GB version, these phones are priced right along with all the other new offering Verizon has on their 4G market. Also the Galaxy SIII has the largest screen available on a phone for Verizon. That brings me to my personal downside. The phone feels too big for me in my hands. I love the 4.5″ form factor. the 4.8″ seems just slightly overkill to me. Also the battery door seem flimsy when removed and feels like it is easily breakable. This is also a personal feeling as the battery door will hardly ever be removed and will probably be hidden underneath a very protective case.
With that said, my opinions should in no way be a deal breaker for you. As I said this is an awesome phone and has the spec sheet to back it up. The phone is available online now for pre-order and Verizon says they will begin shipping on July 19th. The phone is available in both White and Pebble Blue. Head over to you local Verizon Wireless store and have a hands on feel, then come back and let us know what you think.
SOURCE: VZW
