Samsung Galaxy S3 vs ZTE Grand S - Smartphone Shootout

By Anu Passary email: a.passary@mobilenapps.com | Jan 14, 2013 03:52 PM EST

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Samsung may be the smartphone market leader, but a gamut of new 5-inch-plus 1080p display handsets that are making their way to the consumer market in 2013, are looking to challenge the best-selling Galaxy S3.

With the smartphone wars intensifying everyday, China-based ZTE is looking to topple the Galaxy S3 from its pedestal with its latest Grand S smartphone that was unveiled at CES 2013.

The Grand S, along with a plethora of offerings from Huawei, Sony, Lenovo etc. will be vying for consumers' attention in 2013.

Here's a round-up of the features and specifications of the Galaxy S3 and Grand S. Check out how the two devices measure up against each other.

Processor

The international variant of the Galaxy S3 packs in a 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos processor (the North American variant has 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor).

The Grand S easily ousts the Galaxy S3 in this sphere as it houses a much more powerful quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, which is clocked at a faster 1.7GHz.

Display

The Grand S sports a 5-inch full HD display (with 1920 x 1080 pixels) that is not only slightly bigger than the 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen of the Galaxy S3 (1280 x 720 pixels), but also betters the pixel resolution.

Additionally, the Grand S has a pixel density of 441 pixels per inch (ppi), which wallops the 306ppi of the Samsung offering.

Form Factor

The Grand S measures 5.59 x 2.72 x 0.27 inches vis-à-vis the Galaxy S3's 5.38 x 2.78 x 0.35 inches dimensions, making the ZTE smartphone taller, less wide, and thinner than Samsung's flagship device of 2012. ZTE claims that the Grands S is the world's thinnest 5-inch 1080p smartphone on the market.

The Galaxy S3 weighs 4.69oz, making it heavier than the 3.88oz Grand S.

Storage and Memory

The Galaxy S3 edges out the Grands S when it comes to on-board storage. The Galaxy S3 is available in 16/32/64GB internal storage options, whereas the Grand S will be available only in 16GB.

What's more, even though both smartphones offer additional memory support, the Galaxy S3 has an expandable memory option of up to 64GB compared to the 32GB offered by the ZTE smartphone.

The Grand S has 2GB of RAM compared to the Galaxy S3's 1GB.

Software

The Galaxy S3 runs on the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software. What's more, Samsung recently started rolling out the Android 4.1.2 update as well, which bring the Multi-View Window feature to the Galaxy S3.

The Grand S will come with Android 4.1 out of the box.

Battery

The Grand S may be sleek but its thin exterior comes at a price, as the device packs in a not so powerful non-removable 1780mAh battery (the talk time and standby time supported are not yet known).

By contrast, a more powerful removable 2100mAh battery fuels the Galaxy S3 and offers 10.8 hours of talk time on 3G.

Camera

The Galaxy S3 sports an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, which pales when compared to the whopping 13-megapixel primary snapper on the Grand S.

Additionally, the 2-megapixel front-facing camera on the Grand S is better than the 1.9-megapixel one on the Galaxy S3.

Availability

The Galaxy S3 is priced between $199.99 and $329.99 depending on the carrier and is available in an array of colors like brown, gray, white, black, blue, red, and pink (the last color is exclusive to Korea).

ZTE is yet to disclose the pricing of the Grand S, which will also come in several hues like light pink, dark pink, mint green, gray, yellow, black, and white. The phone is slated for a Q1 2013 release.

Even though the Grand S betters the Galaxy S3 in most departments, one must remember that the former is ZTE's flagship phone of 2013, whereas Galaxy S3 is an old warhorse - it debuted almost a year ago. So the comparison may seem unfair to some. However, Galaxy S3 has proved its popularity and success by boasting of at least 30 million units sold in 2012, no mean feat by any standard. If Grand S can better or match Galaxy S3 in terms of sale, it would mean ZTE has a clear winner in its hands. If not, well, it would mean Grand S fought the good fight but lost.