Samsung Galaxy S III vs Samsung Galaxy S II

In this comparison, we're using the international version of the Samsung Galaxy S III, which comes with a quad-core Exynos CPU and 1GB of RAM. The U.S. versions come with a dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU and 2GB of RAM, as well as LTE, except for T-Mobile's, which lacks LTE.


Introduction:

The Galaxy S series of phones is the dream of every Android fan. Being the best of the best, these handsets have always represented the best that Android has to offer, mostly due to their spectacular specs sheets and real-life performance. The Samsung Galaxy S II, which came out last year, was so successful that it could hardly be challenged by any model that launched in the year following its release. However with this new breed of quad-core smartphones, Samsung had to refresh its otherwise still strong offering, by introducing a successor. That successor is, naturally, the Galaxy S III – a beast of a phone that comes to reaffirm Samsung's leading position and fight off the contenders looking to dethrone it.

However, since we know that a lot of you guys are still rocking that trusty GS II, we wanted to take a look at how the new model compares to the old one, and exactly how much of a reason there is in upgrading from the GS II to GS III.

Design:

The form-factor of the new handset might hold all the reasons you need to make the jump, but it might as well keep you away from the new Galaxy S. The reason we're saying this is because it's much bigger, due to having a much bigger screen. While the Galaxy S II can be seen as a compact phone these days (even though its 4.3” display was considered massive a year ago), the Galaxy S III is very big. In terms of usage comfort, it's obvious that the S II has an edge.


As far as materials and construction go, the S III and II are about equal. They are both made of plastic (though the plastic of the GS III should be of the polycarbonate type), and both feel solid enough when held in the hand. If you prefer a glossy finish, the Galaxy S III might appeal to you more, while the S II's plastic is matte. Both have strengths and weaknesses. For example, the glossy finish of the GS III will probably get a bit more attention, but it will also attract more fingerprints.



Display:

If you need a screen as large as possible on your cell phone, then upgrading to the new Galaxy S will be a no-brainer. With a gargantuan 4.8” panel, the Galaxy S III easily dwarfs the 4.3” Galaxy S II.

Of course, with such an increase in size, the S III also needed a bump in resolution. That's why it's now sporting a 720x1280 res, guaranteeing a high pixel density of 306ppi. The pixel density with the Galaxy S II's 480x800 pixel resolution is just 218 ppi. However, the S II relies on the traditional RGB pixel arrangement, while the HD screen of the S III uses a PenTile matrix. The result of this is that the effective resolution of the S III isn't really 720x1280, but a bit lower. Still, it's high enough to make everything perfectly readable. There's a bit more pixelization observed with the display of the Galaxy  S II.

Both handsets use the Super AMOLED technology (the Galaxy S II actually uses Super AMOLED Plus, which means that it has the RGB matrix of which we told you in the previous paragraph). This basically guarantees having ultra-saturated colors and incredibly deep contrast levels, which is all cool. However, the good thing in the Galaxy S III is that it allows you to change the color saturation level. This way, if you prefer having more natural-looking colors, you can simply choose the “Natural” preset, which is missing on the GS II. Samsung has also improved the color temperature a bit with the Galaxy S III, which now sports slightly warmer colors, although there still room for improvement in this respect.

Interface:

At this point, both the Samsung Galaxy S III and S II run Android 4 ICS, but the versions of their TouchWiz interfaces are a bit different. The S III comes with a number of cool features designed to enhance you user experience. A good example here is S Voice – the Samsung alternative of Apple's Siri, or SmartStay. For more details on these, as well as the other new features in the Galaxy S III's TouchWiz Nature UX, please refer to our Samsung Galaxy S III Review.



All in all, both UIs are pretty much the same, with some mostly cosmetic refinements in the GS III.

Messaging:

One would think that typing on the bigger screen of the Galaxy S III will be much easier, but this isn't exactly the case. While the portrait keyboard is indeed bigger, we don't like the fact that the keys on the landscape QWERTY of the GS III are so small. Overall, there probably won't be a significant bump in typing speed if you get the new Galaxy S and use the stock keyboards. If you want to make the most of the 4.8” screen, it would be wise to search for a really god third-party QWERTY keyboard.




Internet:

Probably due to the faster quad-core processor and some optimization of the software, the browsing experience is superior on the Samsung Galaxy S III. Although they are pretty good on the GS II, scrolling and zooming are even smoother on the Galaxy S III.

Samsung has also made some polishing touches to the browser in the S III. For example, since the browser of the S II is a bit closer to the stock ICS browser, every time when you scroll upwards, the address bar pops-up at the top of the screen. Since this can get a bit annoying, Samsung has chosen to get rid of it in the S III, which is a smart move.




Processor and memory:

The processor is among the main hardware improvements made by Samsung in the new Galaxy S. While the 1.2GHz dual-core Exynos processor of the Galaxy S II was all the rage last year, 2012 is obviously the year of the quad-core CPUs. Because of that, the Galaxy S III ships with a faster, 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 processor, which is absolutely brilliant not only when it comes to benchmarks, but also in real-world performance.

The Galaxy S II is fluid and all, but the S III really takes things to the next level with its buttery-smooth animations and transitions, as well as ultra-fast loading times.

The amount of RAM on both devices is equal – 1GB, so there's no improvement in this area for the GS III.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	NenaMark 2
Samsung Galaxy S III	5335	12016	58,6
Samsung Galaxy S II	3113	6076	51

The Galaxy S II comes in 16GB and 32GB flavors, whereas the Galaxy S III steps things up a bit with 16 GB, 32GB and 64GB versions. In addition, while on the GS II you can install microSDHC cards of up to 32GB in size, the GS III actually allows you to use microSDXC cards of up to 64GB. So if you have the habit of keeping your whole life stored on your mobile phone, the Galaxy S III should prove to be more suitable for you.

Camera:

Although the Galaxy S II was among the best camera phones of last year, we expected to see some kind of improvement with the Galaxy S III's 8MP camera. Well, it was actually pretty difficult for us to spot almost any difference between the shots we took with both handsets.

The camera interfaces are mostly the same, with some usability improvements made for the third iteration of the product, where some of the more frequently-used options have been made available from the main screen of the camera as well, for faster access. Besides, with the Galaxy S III, Samsung has added some new shooting modes like Burst shot, which is very useful if you're trying to shoot a quickly-moving object. It basically allows you to take a series of image in a very quick succession, and then easily choose the best one. Another mode that is missing on the GS II is HDR.



As we said, there's hardly any difference between the pictures of both handsets, in terms of details or exposure. The two cameras are performing in pretty much the same way. The only difference that we noticed is that the GS III seems to be taking slightly warmer shots, which is a good thing.

The 1080p video shot with both handsets is also pretty similar, which means that the GS III is very good in that respect, but doesn't really introduce us to great improvements. Anyways, the image quality with the Galaxy S III is indeed a bit better, probably due to the better exposure of the scene.

Samsung Galaxy S III Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S II Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S III Indoor Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S II Indoor Sample Video:



Multimedia:

Both the Galaxy S III and S II are multimedia powerhouses... but we guess what you want to know is how/if the Galaxy S III is better? Well, obviously, the GS III will be much more appropriate for those of you watching a lot of movies or playing a lot of games, thanks to its larger, and slightly brighter 4.8” screen.

Other than that, on software level the GS III comes with fancier music and video players, but nothing that you can't get from Google Play. Both phones will play up to 1080p videos for you. Another asset that would reaffirm the GS III as the better multimedia handset is found with the option of purchasing it with 64GB of internal memory, as well as the microSDXC card slot. Basically, all of this will allow you to store more music and video on your device.

Performance:

Both devices are very good when it comes to making phone calls. Using the Galaxy S II as a solid base, Samsung has improved the sound of the Galaxy S III by implementing a special EQ which makes voices coming through the handset's earpiece sound more natural. Otherwise, both devices are loud enough, so you shouldn't have problems hearing the person on the other end of the line.

The same goes for the quality of the outgoing sound. While both phones have noise-cancellation technology, the GS III works superbly by filtering out pretty much every sound coming from your noisy ambiance.

According to official specs, the Galaxy S II's 1650mAh battery should be enough to deliver 9 hours of 3G talk-time and 25.8 days of stand-by, which is a pretty good achievement. Unfortunately, Samsung hasn't released official numbers for the battery life of the GS III. While the new Galaxy S sports a significantly larger, 2100mAh battery, we shouldn't forget that it also comes with a bigger screen and faster processor that, when used at full power, consumes quite a lot of power. After we tested both handsets, we came to the conclusion that you can expect similar results with them. With moderate and more battery-cautious usage, you should be able to get up to 2 days out of your handset on a single charge. If you're a heavy user, though, prepare to charge every night.

Conclusion:

To sum it all up, there are a number of reasons why upgrading to the Galaxy S III would be good for you. The most important one is the bigger, higher-resolution screen, which will make consumption of multimedia that much more enjoyable.

The other reason is the quad-core Exynos processor, which is basically future-proof right now. Although the dual-core CPU found on the GS II is still pretty good, with these quad-core SoCs around, it might soon find itself lacking enough power to provide smooth performance with heavier apps and games.

The third reason is the refined software on the GS III, in the form of TouchWiz Nature UX. The new UI looks and runs better, while adding a few cool features to further enhance your experience of using the phone. Still, with the Galaxy S II running Ice Cream Sandwich, and with many third-party launchers being available on Google Play, GS II users aren't really missing too much in this respect.

If you can live without those features, well, we guess you can stick to your trusty Galaxy S II for a little longer, until even more capable smartphones start showing up. However, if the Galaxy S III turns out to be as successful as its predecessor, we have the feeling that you might have to wait quite a bit until something better arrives on the scene.