The Samsung Galaxy S III is perhaps the most exciting smartphone the industry has ever seen. The phone, which was initially slammed badly by critics for not being up to their expectations has been smashing every single sales record since the day its pre-order page went live.
India is one of the few lucky countries where this sleek piece of technology was first launched and without wasting much time, I quickly went to a Samsung store and returned with this superphone. It has been only two days since then, but I’m already in love with it. I often find myself holding the phone in my hands and adoring its beauty. No matter what other people say, the Galaxy S III is undoubtedly the best phone I’ve ever handled.


The Super AMOLED HD screen of the Galaxy S III is the foremost thing that comes into notice. It’s huge, black as an onyx and stunning in all its beauty. The Galaxy S3’s 1280×720 (SAMOLED HD) screen is one of the most impressive screens I’ve ever seen, which produces eye popping colors that are bright, vibrant and rich in colors, especially when set to Dynamic screen mode which gives a stunning picture.


Obviously, it does not produce images as sharp as the Super-LCD 2 display of the HTC One X due the pentile structure of pixels in SAMOLED HD screen, but the difference is imperceptible in daily use and not at all a ‘bummer’. On a comparison note, the Galaxy S III easily beats One X when it comes to creating more vivid colors and blacker ‘blacks’.

The display is remarkably visible under direct sunlight, thanks to its screen technology that has the highest contrast ratio in any smartphone.
The Galaxy S II is also the first phone to boast a coating of Gorilla Glass 2 and surprisingly, the screen is (really) a lot smoother than the Galaxy S II’s screen. It’s now also resistant to fingerprint smudges, something which was very frustrating about my Galaxy S II.

Moving on to the aesthetics, contrary to what many ‘expert’ people have commented about the phone’s design, the Galaxy S III is a very beautiful phone. In fact, it even puts my Galaxy S II to shame when held together.
The phone feels very solid and better than what I was expecting before handling it. The Hyper-Glaze coating on the phone feels great in hands. As my personal opinion, the smooth and glossy back-cover feels even better than the mesh textured back cover of Galaxy S II. However, it does invite a lot of fingerprints.
On the sides, the Galaxy S III flaunts a wrapping of a silver band. This combination of silver band and glossy Hyper-Glaze coating gives an amazing fake perception of premium brushed aluminum on a glass build of the phone. Even if it’s not real, it does look and feel really good.
Another interesting thing to note about this phone is that, unlike the recent trend in smartphones, the Galaxy S III is a tad heavier (by a few grams) and thicker than the Galaxy S II. Despite that, its uniform thickness makes this difference unnoticeable and is still very light to hold.
An LED is also present this time, which was missing from the first two Galaxy S phones. I had to previously rely on third party apps like noLED and BLN to keep track of missed events, but thankfully they are no longer needed now.
The arrangement of physical buttons remain the same as any other Samsung phone, one Home button being at the bottom center and two capacitive buttons beside it. This time, the size of the home button has been narrowed down, which does look good, but is a bit harder to press, which is my biggest gripe with this phone. However, the volume and power buttons are actually softer and easier to press than the stiff buttons in Galaxy S II.