Samsung Galaxy S3: Somo's technical genius, Naji El-Arifi gets hands-on for us

Naji El-Arifi is Technical Product Manager at Somo Agency, one of the leading interactive mobile agencies around at the moment. I regularly use one of their creations — the Domino’s Pizza iPad app — way more often than I should. It’s far too easy to order and get the transaction done. A testament to their capabilities.

As a key player in the mobile developer ecosystem, it’s no surprise that Somo’s Naji was on-site during the much feted Samsung Galaxy S3 launch last week. He’s one of the first to get an S3 to actually use on-going.

So what were his first his first impressions? Let’s find out. First, as a reminder, here are the key specs:

+ 4.8in 1280×720 306ppi HD super AMOLED
+ Quad core 1.4 Samsung CPU
+ 16GB 32GB expandable via micro SD up to 64
+ S-voice
+ 8MP camera
+ Notification light
+ New All share capabilities

Now over to Naji:

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So the Samsung S3 just launched and for me, it will be the best phone on the market. They have managed to put a larger screen and bigger battery into a device that is thinner, but about the same height and width as the last one.

It has a gorgeous 4.8in 1280×720 resolution screen with a 306ppi. The ppi doesn’t seem that high but looking at the device, the last thing you notice is the pixels. And yes it is PenTile, that’s what helps them make it so thin, but the resolution is high enough that you won’t really notice.

The design of the exterior is just beautiful. Its new hyper glaze backing, as opposed to the cheap feeling plastic of previous versions, makes it feel much more premium. But you can still remove the back and replace the battery if you need to.

The user experience is lag free and smooth as silk. After a day of testing, the phone seemed to be a powerhouse. One example of this, and a really useful feature, is being able to play HD video in the bottom corner while still being able to use your phone to send emails and messages. If you’re interested in benchmarks, the S3 gets well over 6,000 in quadrant.

There are a fair few small, but significant changes to the user interface, my favourite is the addition of battery percentage in the notification area next to the battery. S-Voice worked really well, in spite of the crowds at the launch event. It uses natural recognition, like Apple’s Siri, but should be better at searches local to the UK.

They are making good use of voice/face combination to ensure unlock can not be performed by anyone other than the phone’s owner. Time out is also smarter, taking a photo just before it goes to sleep, to check to see if you are still looking at the screen.

In summary then: Smarter, faster and I think better than the iPhone!

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Naji, thank you very much indeed. I look forward to your perspective in a little while to see how the phone’s performed over the week!