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Dimension
The Droid 3 has dimensions of 124 x 64 x 13mm and weighs 167g, whereas the Galaxy S3 measures 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6mm and weighs just 133g.
Display
The Droid 3 features a 4.0in TFT capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels at 275 pixels per inch (ppi). The Galaxy S3 comes with a 4.8in Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at 306 ppi. It is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 2 which offers better touch responsiveness than its predecessor. It includes the TouchWiz 4.0 User Interface that features visual improvements as well as motion gestures.
Processor
The Droid 3 is powered by a TI OMAP 4430 chipset with a 1GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 processor. By comparison, the Galaxy S3 is powered by a quad-core Exynos 4212 processor, which was clocked at 1.4GHz. The Droid 3 ships with 512MB of RAM while the Galaxy S3 comes with 1GB of RAM.
Camera
Both smartphones pack eight megapixel rear-facing cameras with auto-focus, LED flash, touch focus, geo-tagging and face detection and both phones allow users to capture videos at 1080p. The Droid 3 has a secondary VGA-quality camera, while the Galaxy S3 comes with a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera.
Operating System
The Droid 3 runs on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system whereas the Galaxy S3 comes pre-installed with the latest version of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS)) - Android 4.0.4.
Storage
The Droid 3 has just the one model - with 16GB of onboard memory. It does, however, accept a microSD card and provides for additional memory of up to 32GB. The Galaxy S3, in contrast, comes in three internal storage variants - 16/32/64GB. The 64GB model is expected to arrive later this year. It too has a microSD card slot and provides more additional memory than the Droid 3 - 64GB.
Connectivity
The Droid 3 offers Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR. By comparison, the Galaxy S3 features Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot and Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP and EDR.
Battery
The Motorola smartphone comes with a Li-Ion 1540mAh standard battery which allows for talk time of up to 550 minutes and stand by time of up to 300 hours. On the other hand, the Samsung smartphone is has a Li-Ion 2100mAh standard battery which allows for talk time of up to 11 hours 40 minutes and stand by time of up to 790 hours on 3G networks.
Samsung Galaxy S3 most popular UK phone - PC Advisor
The Samsung Galaxy S3 has unceremoniously tipped Apple’s once-untouchable iPhone off the top spot as the UK’s most popular smartphone.
Galaxy SIII knocks Apple iPhone 4S off top spot
Just days after its UK launch the Galaxy S3 has topped the uSwitch Tech’s Mobile Tracker, replacing the white iPhone 4S. See also: Group test: What's the best smartphone?
The price-comparison website’s Mobile Tracker ranks handsets based on live searches and sales.
The smartphone war is clearly set between the two main phone makers: Samsung and Apple. The iPhone 4S had only briefly replaced the Samsung Galaxy S2, last month. The Android-powered S2 remains at number 3, despite the arrival of its successor, and there are two other Galaxy handsets (Ace phone and Note "phablet") in the top ten.
Apple’s older iPhone 4 still places in the mobile league table.
See also: Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Apple iPhone 4S comparison review.
uSwitch’s Ernest Doku forecasts that the “one-two punch” of the S2 and S3 augur well for continued strong showings for Samsung in the Mobile Tracker.
“Feeling surprisingly light to carry due to its brushed polycarbonate casing, especially considering the vast 4.8 Super AMOLED screen, the Samsung S III looks set to give the iPhone a serious run for its money,” Doku said when announcing the new smartphone ranking.
Behind the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy handsets is the HTC One Series mobile, three of which appear in the top ten, leaving just Sony hanging on in the Samsung/Apple/HTC smartphone domination.
See also: Samsung Galaxy S3 vs HTC One X comparison review.
Top Ten Handsets for March 2012 by web search (uSwitch)
4. HTC One X
8. HTC One S
9. HTC One V
10. Sony Xperia S
Doku added: “What is interesting this month is the arrival of the HTC One series as a major player in the smartphone market alongside Apple and Samsung.
“The One V’s new entry means HTC now has all three One series devices in the top ten. These are fun yet powerful smartphones, concentrating on cutting edge devices at incredibly competitive prices.”
Apple, Samsung continues tablet dominance - Zd Net Asia.com
Apple, Samsung continues tablet dominance - ZDNet Asia: Apple, Samsung continues tablet dominanceZDNet Asia59 Ja... http://t.co/qKtwnZNA
26 minutes ago by semarang_photo on twitterGoogle, Samsung team up for new PCs - Australian Financial Review
Google, Samsung team up for new PCs
Google has taken the “next step” along the way to convincing us that computers built around its Chrome operating system are worth giving a damn about, launching two new Chrome OS computers with Samsung and penning a little haiku to accompany the news:
Last year we announced
a new kind of computer
This is the next step
Though, equally, the haiku might have read like this:
Here are two PCs
They don’t do a lot of stuff
Does anyone care?
Not many people cared the first time around – I can’t say that I know too many people who own a Chrome OS computer – but who knows what will happen this time? A partnership between Google, the world’s largest advertising company, and Samsung, the world’s largest consumer electronics company, must eventually produce results, right?
Chrome OS (for those of you who didn’t care the first time) is a lightweight operating system designed for people who run most or all of their computing services in the internet cloud. If you use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word for your word processing, and Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Contacts instead of Microsoft Outlook, you could well be a candidate for one of these two new machines.
One of the new Samsung devices is a “Chromebook” laptop known as the Samsung Series 5 550. It’s said to have a battery that lasts 2.5 times longer than Samsung’s first foray into Chromebooks, the Series 5.
It will go on sale in Best Buy stores in the US, as well as online, for $US449 for the Wi-Fi-only version, and $US549 for a version that incorporates 3G mobile broadband.
Perhaps of more interest is the other new device, known as a Chromebox. It’s what would once have been called a thin-client PC, or maybe an Apple Mac Mini, with an Intel Core processor, 4Gb of RAM, 6 USB ports, ethernet as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a DVI output for attaching it to a monitor. So, not all that thin, at least from a hardware specs perspective. It will sell for $US329.
The Samsung Chromebox: just add a monitor
Source: Google
One of the main criticisms of the previous generations of Chromebooks (to the extent that anyone bothered criticising them at all) was that they weren’t very good at doing stuff when they weren’t attached to the internet.
For cloud-centric machines, they were a little too cloud-centric.
But Google promises it has fixed that issue with the latest version of Chrome OS, which will sport a version of Google Drive (Google’s cloud-based storage system) that supports offline file access, and a version of Google Documents (Google’s answer to Microsoft Office) that allows you to work on documents even when you’re not attached to the internet.
That’s on top of what Google promises are hundreds of “offline-capable web apps” already in the Google app store, a phrase that must be less oxymoronic than it sounds.
Windows 8 so cheap, it’s almost free
Windows 7 users who feel a little short-changed by the shift to Windows 8 in coming months will be able to upgrade for pocket change. Microsoft has set the price for a Windows 8 upgrade, and it’s only $US14.99.
Depending on currency fluctuations between now and the launch of Windows 8 in October*, that could cost you as little a five cups of coffee.
But there’s a catch with that low price: it only applies to people who buy a Windows 7 PC after June 2 this year.
Whether or not you’d really want to upgrade a Windows 7 to Windows 8 is another matter, though.
If you’re buying a Windows 7 machine between now and October* (or indeed between now and next January, which is when the cheap upgrade offer expires), the chances are it won’t have a touch sensitive screen, and given that most of the enhancements to Windows 8 work best with a touch screen, Windows 8 will have limited, no, or possibly even negative appeal to many potential upgraders.
But there are a few things to Windows 8 that might convince a non-touch screen PC owner to shell out those $15. In the Windows 8 Release preview, the company greatly improved the software which drives touchpads, bringing it closer to the rich gesture-based, multi-touch experience that Mac owners have enjoyed for years. Multi-monitor support will be better in Windows 8 than in Windows 7, too: you’ll have more control over the location of the task bar, and will even be able to have a task bar on each monitor, with each one containing icons only for the applications that are displayed on that monitor.
By the time it’s released in October*, Windows 8 should also use less disk space, take up less memory, and use less CPU power than Windows 7, all of which might matter a great deal to someone without a touch screen PC but with, say, a low-voltage Ultrabook which didn’t come with a lot of memory or a lot of hard disk space in the first place. For such people, $US14.99 might seem like a bargain indeed.
(*Microsoft has yet to announce an official launch date for Windows 8, but in his blog the man in charge of Windows, Steven Sinofsky, wrote that Windows 8 would “enter the final phases of the Release To Manufacturing process in about two months”. This would put Windows on course for that much-rumoured October release.)
Vodafone Smart II budget handset launched - Tech Watch
Vodafone has launched a new budget Android handset, as part of the ever increasing cost cutting which is helping to drive smartphone adoption.
The Smart II phone is an “unprecedented combination of high performance and low cost”, the firm boasts, with that price tag being £70, to rival some of the cheap blowers Orange has in its range.
Vodafone compares the Smart II to the top end handsets of three years ago, with the spec including a 3.2 inch HVGA touchscreen, 800MHz processor, 512MB of Ram, along with a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash.
The handset also has 3G and Wi-Fi, plus assisted GPS technology, and interchangeable back plates for 16 different colour variations. It comes with Facebook and Twitter on board.
However, as you might have guessed, you don’t get Ice Cream Sandwich as the OS, rather Gingerbread. Though that’s better than some of those aforementioned cheapies from Orange, such as the similarly priced Barcelona which comes with Froyo.
The San Francisco 2 is, of course, Orange’s king budget smartphone, but that costs a bit more than the Smart II.
Patrick Chomet, Group Terminals Director, commented: “The Smart II is one of the most important devices we have ever introduced. It delivers a level of performance, functionality and quality that is traditionally the preserve of high-end smartphones but at an exceptionally affordable price.”
“We believe the Smart II could represent a tipping point in the evolution of the market, bringing a new wave of consumers to the supermobile world for the first time.”
So when is this budget wonder due out? You can grab one right now, down at the Vodafone online store.
Samsung Galaxy S III Landing on Five U.S. Carriers in June - PC Advisor
The wait is almost over: The Samsung Galaxy S III will be available from five US carriers beginning later this month. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and U.S. Cellular will all get versions of the Galaxy S III. Unlike the global version of the Galaxy S III, the US versions will not have the quad-core Exynos processor. Pricing and availability will be announced by the individual carriers in the coming weeks, but Samsung says that prices will start at $200.
Samsung S3 Controls
The Galaxy S III will be powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor. There were early reports that Samsung's Exynos processor might not be compatible with US LTE networks, but Samsung has yet to state why the US version comes with a different processor.
HTC pulled a similar trick with the One X: The global version of that phone runs on an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, while the US version uses a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor--the same as the one found in the U.S. Galaxy S III. In this case, Nvidia's quad-core processor was not yet compatible with AT&T's LTE network at the time of the One X's release. In our benchmarks, however, the U.S. version of the One X did quite well.
The Galaxy S III is 8.6mm thin and sports a 4.8-inch display with a very small bezel. Running Android 4.0, it has new features like a content sharing service, a voice-activated virtual assistant and motion controls. It can also tracks your eyes via the front-facing camera to keep the phone on while you're using it. When you put the phone down, the screen will turn off.
We got our hands on the global version of the phone last month--check out our first impressions to get a feel of Samsung's newest offering. Stay tuned for PCWorld's full rated review of the U.S. Galaxy S III in the next few weeks.
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