Even my local news channel was talking about that song today. I don't get it, because it's just as poppy and repetitive as every other popular pop song. Samsung could learn from whatever magical marketing they're doing. (Shameless attempt at pretending to be on topic.)
...You didn't get the wonderful 4 core Exynos chipset, the very high clocked Mali-graphics and the Wolfson DAC, I'm terribly happy with them, but then again I envy your 2GB of RAM.
But I guess the 4 core Exynos with Mali(hardware accellerated graphics) does more for the browsing experience, which is part of the point with a 4.8" screen and what sets it apart from a common Iphone in-app experience. Sorry you missed that, but you will get slightly longer battery life ...
So, I'll go ahead and say that I don't have a clue why I'd want 4 cores in my phone. As it is, I haven't replaced my blown C2Q because the dual-core I swapped in is as fast for 99% of usage. And that's on a rig with which I regularly game and encode. My phone's main use is e-mail, browsing, Twitter and some light gaming. The 4210 is an excellent SoC and I would love to play with it. But I'd never want to live with it.
And if Samsung's listening, I trust you that the power saving options in the 4210 are quite impressive and keep the SoC competitive in battery life. But I just don't see I have a need for four cores in anything. And yes, I'm planning on buying the SGSIII.
Sir, if you say that your dual core is as fast as your C2Q for encoding, you are doing it wrong. Unless your dual core isn't a core 2 duo and it's a new Core iX.
I second that. For encoding... The more cores the better.
However, you *could* leverage the GPU to do such tasks anyway...
But for gaming? Some games benefit *greatly* from 4-6 cores, like Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, GTA IV, Metro 2033, FarCry just to name a few.
It's amazing how well a Q6600 overclocked has kept up though, even after all these years they can happily push the best games fine with a decent GPU backing it. Mostly you could blame it on games being console ports, so HOPEFULLY games might push the PC's power when the next generation arrive and then the Core 2 quad users will have an excuse to upgrade.
So which cutting edge games or apps are you enjoying which take advantage of your 4 core CPU and enhanced GPU? I honestly want to know because I can't find anything worth downloading on my GS3 International apart from Angry Birds Space and Temple Run which is sooo cutting edge...At least with my "common" iPhone 4S you have decent apps which are optimised for your device available unlike on Android, whizzy hardware or not.
Are the Quad core and GPU used to enhance the Android desktop and scrolling experience so it is almost as good as an iPhone 4S in user experience? Most people don't just spend their time running benchmarks on their phones, and even on PC's it doesn't really matter to anyone other than tweakers with more time than things to do. I'm not sure why you would choose any Android handset based on my experience with the Galaxy 3 so far over an iOS device unless you literally just like the hardware, OS or need a big screen, for some reason.
The iPhone 4S wins on smoothness, standard navigation (without any of those annoying are-they-there-aren't-they-there menu button menus), battery life and available useful apps by a huge distance. You can have the best hardware out there, but without anything that takes advantage of it all you can do is play with all the admittedly large tweakable options list and play with that little ripple effect on the homescreen.
...some comparison between US and world versions of S3. Performance, battery life, etc. Isn't it strange that we have 2 phones named the same, but with completely different SoCs?
Sadly for us, with regards Samsung, this isn't strange. Remember that in the US we got two SoCs lurking within the GSII variants we saw. Brian just got his international GSIII so we should have comparisons for you when he has a chance to sit and breath for a minute.
As far as why we have this issue. Outside of the US, the mobile market is driven by the manufacturers. Carriers compete with each other on price and services, but handset makers are the ones competing for the hearts and minds of the mobile market. In the US, hearts and minds are set aside and the name of the game is adhesion. By tying people to 2 year contracts, mobile users cede control of the mobile handset market entirely to the carriers. It's not easy for handset makers to advertise to the US market because it almost always has to be in conjunction with a carrier. So, we won't see an HTC One X commercial that doesn't feature AT&T branding, but we will see an awfully similar ad for the Evo 4G LTE.
The end result of all of this is that the interests of the consumer come second to the interests of the carrier. The top carriers each have their 4G and "4G" networks to feature, so if a phone can't accentuate that network, it won't be sold on their network (except for one iDevice that need not be named). So when Samsung approached each of the carriers with their Galaxy S III, and informed them that support for LTE and DC-HSPA+ would require additional hardware and would diminish battery life and potentially require form factor changes, they were told to rethink that. With the now ubiquitous Snapdragon S4 ready to go with A9-quadcore matching performance in a small, LTE/DC-HSPA+ equipped package, the choice was a nonbrainer for our carriers.
All that said, I still don't understand the quad-core phone idea, and probably won't ever. But then again, I'm the guy that's still using an OG Droid.
When I was thinking of going with a Nokia Windows phone... the way business is in the USA changed that. First, it took a LONG time to get to the USA... wow, like months before the WP8 is coming out.
So first all, unless you want to spend $400~700 on a phone that a carrier would sell to you for $1~200, you are limited... most people will go for the savings.
I happen to be on at&t... but all we get is the 900. (Not the 800 or 700 series) Also, choice of blue or black, that's it... not bad for $100 thou... I wanted the 800.
Also, at least a few years ago... Sony-Erricison phones for the US were very limited compared to international. About 10 different models vs almost 100 i (international) models. Because the carrier only had crap SONY phones or something that wouldn't work for my needs, I dropped $250 for an Sony i-model... then 6 months later, at&t brings in for $100 less (ARGH). But the advantage for a NON-US phone is ZERO carrier garbage! More music and backgrounds and games included.
Hitting menu on my Sony i-model, took you to the main screen with TEXTING selected. At&t change it to default to "at&t app store" - for which there are a handle full of stupid apps.
I was in an at&t shop last week... not seeing a phone I really want. :(
Yer, your carriers have so much control, it's a bit like the European market back in 2000. When I was in Asia recently I noticed that the Nokia lumia was everywhere from Nokia stores to big bold adverts which was good, although I guess there will be a backlash when Windows 8 comes out and they realise that they can't upgrade. I guess that is ther market Nokia and Windows are targeting more than NA and Europe where windows Phones are still flops. Apple was absolutely everywhere ranging from other businesses like restaurants ripping off the look of the Apple store (complete with Steve Jobs pictures) or the fact that you can buy jeans, shoes, shirts and alarm clocks and lots of other unconnected things bearing the Apple logo. It was prety hilarious...
Having owned a Galaxy 3 (international version) for a week, you can take most of these killer features with a pinch of salt. The wave hand in front across screen I have never managed to get working. There are lots of egregiously pointless motion controls such as tap and hold an icon then pan the device to move an icon between home screens. Useless. I've never managed to get the All Share working, which is not exactly surprising as DNLA has always had more potential than actual usability. The NFC could be useful one day for payments and communications (if there is a standard protocol a la bluetooth) but by then, will I still have this phone? The smart stay eye detection is pointless as well as it takes too long to detect your eyes and by the time is does it has turned the screen off. S Assist is the poor cousin of Siri currently as it fails to understand any of my contact names and then gets stuck in a loop. Hmmm not too useful there. It also lacks the subtle endearing sarcasm of Apple's personal assistant. The phone itself feels cheap and nasty especially the battery cover which feels like you won it in a cracker rather than paying £400-500 for it and the screen whilst big and bright in doors is unreadable outside, and suffers from very fuzzy text and tinted colours compared to anything from Apple more modern than an iPhone 3GS. Lacking a proper multitasking button and having to tap and hold means that I hardly ever switch between programs using this method because it is slooooow.
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ImSpartacus - Thursday, June 21, 2012 - link
Anandtech just linked to a mainstream pop song. My life is complete.JasonInofuentes - Thursday, June 21, 2012 - link
Go with cod.duffman55 - Thursday, June 21, 2012 - link
Even my local news channel was talking about that song today. I don't get it, because it's just as poppy and repetitive as every other popular pop song. Samsung could learn from whatever magical marketing they're doing. (Shameless attempt at pretending to be on topic.)JasonInofuentes - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
I think the lesson for Samsung from that song is that you can be viral because you're terrible. So staying cheeky could pay off.xeizo - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
...You didn't get the wonderful 4 core Exynos chipset, the very high clocked Mali-graphics and the Wolfson DAC, I'm terribly happy with them, but then again I envy your 2GB of RAM.But I guess the 4 core Exynos with Mali(hardware accellerated graphics) does more for the browsing experience, which is part of the point with a 4.8" screen and what sets it apart from a common Iphone in-app experience. Sorry you missed that, but you will get slightly longer battery life ...
JasonInofuentes - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
So, I'll go ahead and say that I don't have a clue why I'd want 4 cores in my phone. As it is, I haven't replaced my blown C2Q because the dual-core I swapped in is as fast for 99% of usage. And that's on a rig with which I regularly game and encode. My phone's main use is e-mail, browsing, Twitter and some light gaming. The 4210 is an excellent SoC and I would love to play with it. But I'd never want to live with it.And if Samsung's listening, I trust you that the power saving options in the 4210 are quite impressive and keep the SoC competitive in battery life. But I just don't see I have a need for four cores in anything. And yes, I'm planning on buying the SGSIII.
Filiprino - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Sir, if you say that your dual core is as fast as your C2Q for encoding, you are doing it wrong. Unless your dual core isn't a core 2 duo and it's a new Core iX.StevoLincolnite - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
I second that. For encoding... The more cores the better.However, you *could* leverage the GPU to do such tasks anyway...
But for gaming? Some games benefit *greatly* from 4-6 cores, like Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, GTA IV, Metro 2033, FarCry just to name a few.
It's amazing how well a Q6600 overclocked has kept up though, even after all these years they can happily push the best games fine with a decent GPU backing it.
Mostly you could blame it on games being console ports, so HOPEFULLY games might push the PC's power when the next generation arrive and then the Core 2 quad users will have an excuse to upgrade.
robinthakur - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
So which cutting edge games or apps are you enjoying which take advantage of your 4 core CPU and enhanced GPU? I honestly want to know because I can't find anything worth downloading on my GS3 International apart from Angry Birds Space and Temple Run which is sooo cutting edge...At least with my "common" iPhone 4S you have decent apps which are optimised for your device available unlike on Android, whizzy hardware or not.Are the Quad core and GPU used to enhance the Android desktop and scrolling experience so it is almost as good as an iPhone 4S in user experience? Most people don't just spend their time running benchmarks on their phones, and even on PC's it doesn't really matter to anyone other than tweakers with more time than things to do. I'm not sure why you would choose any Android handset based on my experience with the Galaxy 3 so far over an iOS device unless you literally just like the hardware, OS or need a big screen, for some reason.
The iPhone 4S wins on smoothness, standard navigation (without any of those annoying are-they-there-aren't-they-there menu button menus), battery life and available useful apps by a huge distance. You can have the best hardware out there, but without anything that takes advantage of it all you can do is play with all the admittedly large tweakable options list and play with that little ripple effect on the homescreen.
Mugur - Sunday, June 24, 2012 - link
...some comparison between US and world versions of S3. Performance, battery life, etc. Isn't it strange that we have 2 phones named the same, but with completely different SoCs?JasonInofuentes - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Sadly for us, with regards Samsung, this isn't strange. Remember that in the US we got two SoCs lurking within the GSII variants we saw. Brian just got his international GSIII so we should have comparisons for you when he has a chance to sit and breath for a minute.As far as why we have this issue. Outside of the US, the mobile market is driven by the manufacturers. Carriers compete with each other on price and services, but handset makers are the ones competing for the hearts and minds of the mobile market. In the US, hearts and minds are set aside and the name of the game is adhesion. By tying people to 2 year contracts, mobile users cede control of the mobile handset market entirely to the carriers. It's not easy for handset makers to advertise to the US market because it almost always has to be in conjunction with a carrier. So, we won't see an HTC One X commercial that doesn't feature AT&T branding, but we will see an awfully similar ad for the Evo 4G LTE.
The end result of all of this is that the interests of the consumer come second to the interests of the carrier. The top carriers each have their 4G and "4G" networks to feature, so if a phone can't accentuate that network, it won't be sold on their network (except for one iDevice that need not be named). So when Samsung approached each of the carriers with their Galaxy S III, and informed them that support for LTE and DC-HSPA+ would require additional hardware and would diminish battery life and potentially require form factor changes, they were told to rethink that. With the now ubiquitous Snapdragon S4 ready to go with A9-quadcore matching performance in a small, LTE/DC-HSPA+ equipped package, the choice was a nonbrainer for our carriers.
All that said, I still don't understand the quad-core phone idea, and probably won't ever. But then again, I'm the guy that's still using an OG Droid.
Belard - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Agreed, understand and not impressed.When I was thinking of going with a Nokia Windows phone... the way business is in the USA changed that. First, it took a LONG time to get to the USA... wow, like months before the WP8 is coming out.
So first all, unless you want to spend $400~700 on a phone that a carrier would sell to you for $1~200, you are limited... most people will go for the savings.
I happen to be on at&t... but all we get is the 900. (Not the 800 or 700 series) Also, choice of blue or black, that's it... not bad for $100 thou... I wanted the 800.
Also, at least a few years ago... Sony-Erricison phones for the US were very limited compared to international. About 10 different models vs almost 100 i (international) models. Because the carrier only had crap SONY phones or something that wouldn't work for my needs, I dropped $250 for an Sony i-model... then 6 months later, at&t brings in for $100 less (ARGH). But the advantage for a NON-US phone is ZERO carrier garbage! More music and backgrounds and games included.
Hitting menu on my Sony i-model, took you to the main screen with TEXTING selected. At&t change it to default to "at&t app store" - for which there are a handle full of stupid apps.
I was in an at&t shop last week... not seeing a phone I really want. :(
robinthakur - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
Yer, your carriers have so much control, it's a bit like the European market back in 2000. When I was in Asia recently I noticed that the Nokia lumia was everywhere from Nokia stores to big bold adverts which was good, although I guess there will be a backlash when Windows 8 comes out and they realise that they can't upgrade. I guess that is ther market Nokia and Windows are targeting more than NA and Europe where windows Phones are still flops. Apple was absolutely everywhere ranging from other businesses like restaurants ripping off the look of the Apple store (complete with Steve Jobs pictures) or the fact that you can buy jeans, shoes, shirts and alarm clocks and lots of other unconnected things bearing the Apple logo. It was prety hilarious...robinthakur - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
Having owned a Galaxy 3 (international version) for a week, you can take most of these killer features with a pinch of salt. The wave hand in front across screen I have never managed to get working. There are lots of egregiously pointless motion controls such as tap and hold an icon then pan the device to move an icon between home screens. Useless. I've never managed to get the All Share working, which is not exactly surprising as DNLA has always had more potential than actual usability. The NFC could be useful one day for payments and communications (if there is a standard protocol a la bluetooth) but by then, will I still have this phone? The smart stay eye detection is pointless as well as it takes too long to detect your eyes and by the time is does it has turned the screen off. S Assist is the poor cousin of Siri currently as it fails to understand any of my contact names and then gets stuck in a loop. Hmmm not too useful there. It also lacks the subtle endearing sarcasm of Apple's personal assistant. The phone itself feels cheap and nasty especially the battery cover which feels like you won it in a cracker rather than paying £400-500 for it and the screen whilst big and bright in doors is unreadable outside, and suffers from very fuzzy text and tinted colours compared to anything from Apple more modern than an iPhone 3GS. Lacking a proper multitasking button and having to tap and hold means that I hardly ever switch between programs using this method because it is slooooow.