Samsung Galaxy S III

[Snokio]

Sim fee Samsung S III is going to be around the £550 mark :blink:

Screen looks big using minimal bezel doesn't change the overall size by too much, or maybe those hands are small :g:

Specs are:

4.8" HD screen (Super AMOLED display) 1280 x 720P (HD)
1.4Ghz quad core processor + new GPU
1.9 megapixel front facing camera, 8 megapixel rear camera
16gb, 32gb, 64gb versions with optional 32gb micro SD card (Max)
Android 4 (ICS)

 See it in action here:

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-in-action-video-04-03-2012/

P.S. This site is excellent for keeping up to date with the latest tech :thumbs:

[TeaLeaf]

Over the past 2 years the carriers have caught on to the number of people buying SIM-free and have increased the price of the phone to a level where it makes mroe sense to do a contract now.

[T-Bag]

There were rumours this would have a ceramic back. I thought the days of cheap plastic-ness were over. But no, all reports I've read suggest this is a premium phone in a budget case. I'll be avoiding this one too, which is a shame as it has some good features.

The One X looks like my phone of choice unless something comes out between now and August.

As for Sim Free prices, they've gotten absurd. £300 is fine, it's a one off and save you money. £600 is simply too much, you can't save any money at those prices. When you can get a high spec 10" tablet, or a powerful laptop for less than the latest phone you know they're just plucking a price out of this air.

[smite]

I have keeping an eye on this phone for the past few months. It and the specs look good but should I wait and see what the iPhone 5 looks like?

Orange are going to be doing this phone for free for a £36 pm 24 mth contract. 600 mins, 1G Internet & unlimited text.... Not too bad.

[TeaLeaf]

Three are doing it for £34pm inc All-you-can-eat-data (unlimited & allows you to tether any other devices to it which many other contracts do not allow), 2,000 minutes, 5,000 Three-to-Three minutes and 5,000 texts.   It's also got probably the best HSDPA network access in the country (DYOR for where you live).

I regularly tether my tablet or laptop to my current phone (via Three) and my experience of the coverage has been excellent.

[T-Bag]

I have keeping an eye on this phone for the past few months. It and the specs look good but should I wait and see what the iPhone 5 looks like?

Orange are going to be doing this phone for free for a £36 pm 24 mth contract. 600 mins, 1G Internet & unlimited text.... Not too bad.

If you have more than one phone in your household you can beat the stock prices they offer by going into carphone warehouse or similar (for some reason going direct they offer awful deals, but if one of those places ring up they give much better prices and unlocked phones). I signed up for my contract with T-Mobile along with 2 others in my family all in one account, and although the stock deals were pretty poor I managed to get an unlocked HTC Incredible S at launch for £25 a month (Unlimited Texts & internet + 300mins) + £10 for the phone itself (Something like £400 what it would have been usually).

I'd recommend anyone who has a partner or kids combine their contracts, you could save quite a lot (that's not even considering other deals like free calls to the same network, or friends and family minutes you can get too). Moving numbers around is surprisingly easy these days too if you can live with a temp one for a couple of days. It's a good way to fight the trend of ever increasing contract prices.

[Snokio]

thought I would bring this thread back to life a bit just to mention that the SIII have been seen for £374 - £399 recently on Amazon and Adsa online, SIM Free, has been up and down a fair bit though!

Suspect an LTE will be out soon so will put prices down further.

[Tutonic]

What excellent timing, my SIII LTE arrived this morning.

Seriously impressive phone, I'm still getting used to all the new toys but the screen is gorgeous and it's lightning fast.

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2

[Snokio]

Didnt think it was out yet, can i ask where you purchased it from?

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk 2

[Tutonic]

Orange. I upgraded my Desire HD.

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2

[T-Bag]

Have you speed tested the LTE yet? Early reviews put it at on par with 3G to about twice 3G speeds at the moment. Although in theory it can (and will) go much much faster than that just curious where it's at now in real world testing. Also does the LTE version come with Jelly Bean preinstalled?

I put JB on my regular SIII (non-LTE quadcore version) and it gets even smoother. Not a huge amount of difference other than that, and google now, which like Siri is pretty useless but I expect at some point in the future voice control will be useful.

[Tutonic]

Yep - JB came preloaded.

I would speed test it, but I'm at the LAN and March is still in the dark ages.

I'll test it when I get back to Cambridge.

Sent from my Galaxy S3 LTE.

[Tutonic]

As promised, here's a speed test I've just done in the office:

Test Date: Oct 24, 2012 12:12:43 pm
Connection Type: Cell
Server: London
Download: 6629 kbps
Upload: 1630 kbps
Ping: 119 ms

Pretty good for a 3G network I'd say. Now if EE fancy putting a 4G network into Cambridge....

[Snokio]

I think 4G is being switched on, on the 30th Oct, they have an agreement across many networks as it was going to be exclusive to O2 I believe

[Tutonic]

I think 4G is being switched on, on the 30th Oct, they have an agreement across many networks as it was going to be exclusive to O2 I believe

Not in Cambridge it isn't

*shakes angry fist*