By Johnny Wills | Jul 14, 2012 09:37 AM EDT
The dust is just settling from the Galaxy S2 versus iPhone 4S smartphone wars and a new battle is looming ahead – Galaxy S3 against iPhone 5. With the debut of Samsung Galaxy S3, iPhones 4S sales are cooling down in the global market. However, the reason behind it could be the iPhone 5 that Apple fanboys are waiting for. After all, we should not blame Galaxy S3 for everything.
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Samsung Galaxy S2 versus Apple iPhone 4S was one of the most exciting smartphone war the industry have ever seen. However, the successor to the Galaxy S2 has arrived and now it's time for the Galaxy S3 to shine. But, some people who own the Galaxy S2 doubt whether the new smartphone is worth upgrading.
We are here to solve the riddle with the detailed comparison of both these smartphones.
Design and Display
Kicking off with the Galaxy S2, it has 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with a resolution of 480 X 800 pixels, topped by Corning Gorilla Glass protection. The device is 8.5mm thick and weighs 113 g. On the other hand, the Galaxy S3 has a massive 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display with resolution of 720 X 1,280 pixels. The display is protected by second-generation Corning Gorilla Glass. It has a uniform 8.6mm thickness and weighs 133 g.
The Galaxy S2 is smaller, lighter and fits in the pocket easily. On the other hand, the Galaxy S3 is bigger, but build quality remains the same - both the smartphone have plastic body. The Galaxy S3 comes in white and blue editions with so-called "hyperglazed" layer on the top of plastic. Samsung Galaxy S2 comes in black, white and pink colors with patterned backcover. However, the build quality of both the Samsung smartphones cannot be compared to eye-popping polycarbonate or aluminum unibodies.
When it comes to display, RGB (Galaxy S2) and PenTile (Galaxy S3) displays are often compared, where RGB is found to be superior display technology. Galaxy S2's display produce perfect black dark pixels, but it can never match the sharpness of HD displays; we are comparing WVGA @217ppi with HD display having 300+ pixel density here.
Processor, Memory and Storage
Samsung's latest flagship model runs on quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex A9 processor fitted on Exynos 4 Quad chipset, accompanied by Mali 400MP GPU. It has 1GB of RAM, 16/32GB of internal storage and microSD card support up to 64GB. A 64GB edition of Galaxy S3 is due to debut later this year.
Samsung Galaxy S2 has dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex A9 processor, same Mali 400MP GPU, 1GB of RAM and 16/32GB of build-in storage. Fortunately, 64GB microSD cards are also compatible with the smartphone.
The LTE variant of Galaxy S3 comes with dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, but 2GB of RAM, while Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE has slower Snapdragon S3 processor and same 1GB of RAM.
Connectivity
Most of the Android smartphones have identical connectivity offerings. The scenario is same here, but the latest Galaxy S series smartphone takes the game with added benefits. S Beam app, which is based on NFC chip, allows users to share big file in a matter of few seconds. GPS with GLONASS support locates your exact location with a significant margin, before Galaxy S2 does that. Both the smartphone can do Bluetooth 3.0 high speed transfer, but Galaxy S3 again has an advantage with Bluetooth 4.0 support for device's with low power requirements. In addition, the notification LED is back in Galaxy S3, which is missing from the dethroned Samsung king.
User Interface
Both the smartphones run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich - Galaxy S2 with OTA update and Galaxy S3 out-of-box, but the Galaxy S3 takes things a step further. The difference could be easily noticed from the homescreen - Galaxy S3 has 5 row stationary dock, while there dock has 4 rows in the Galaxy S2. In addition, Samsung Galaxy S3 packs a couple of smart features like Smart Stay, S Voice, Direct Call, Pop-up Play, AllShare Cast, etc.
Camera
With 8-megapixel rear camera loaded in both these smartphones, the quality of still shots remains the same. However, Samsung does some tricks in Galaxy S3 by updating the camera with low shutter lags, photo capturing while recording HD videos and burst camera mode to take up to 20 continuous shots. In addition, both the smartphones shoot 1080p videos at 30fps at 17Mbps in MP4 format with 130Kbps audio bitrate and 48 kHz sampling. The Galaxy S3 gives slightly better quality under low light conditions. The secondary camera in Galaxy S3 is 1.9-megapixel that records 720p HD videos at 30fps. Secondary camera in Galaxy S3 is 2-megapixel, but it records 480p videos only.
Battery
Samsung Galaxy S3 has 2,100 mAh battery with 450 mAh added capacity than its predecessor, which gives a talk time of 10 hours, 5 hours of web browsing and 10 hours of video playback. Battery in Galaxy S2 is 1,650 mAh that gives more than 8 hours of talk time. Galaxy S2's battery lasts 5 hours on web browsing and 7 hours on video playback.
Conclusion
Galaxy S3 has gigantic HD display, double number of processor cores, software intelligence and rapid-fire camera. The Galaxy S2 isn't quite as good as its successor. Like always, newer smartphone is better, but Galaxy S2 will easily be one of the best smartphones in the market for another one year. If you already have the Galaxy S2, you probably might not be so keen for an upgrade. And, if you're a first time Galaxy buyer, you can get the Galaxy S2 at much cheaper price than the Galaxy S3. For U.S. users, Galaxy S2 have some exclusive LTE variants too, one of which come with bigger HD displays.
Will the next Galaxy S smartphone, which is likely to be called the Galaxy S4, change the whole game with eye-popping design, 12-megapixel camera and superior features? Meanwhile, let us know whether you own the Galaxy S2 and are thinking of buying the Galaxy S3. If so, why?
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