One is a seven-month veteran of the mobile market, still the newest Google device to
bear the Nexus name.
The other is the newest in the most successful line of Android phones the world has ever
seen.
They already share shelf space in stores around the world, so let's see what's different and
the same, good and bad about the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the Samsung Galaxy S III.
I'm Michael Fisher.
This is Pocketnow.
Let's do it.
Just a disclaimer here: long-time viewers will know this, but newcomers won't.
I'm based in the United States and I use Verizon Wireless as my carrier, so my version of the
Galaxy Nexus is the LTE variant.
Despite my recent complaints about it not being a "true" Nexus device, for our purposes,
I'll be treating it just like the GSM Galaxy Nexus.
The Galaxy S III I'm using is an international version, as no US carrier has yet released
the phone.
It's a white, unlocked, 16GB device tied to an AT&T account.
So in terms of hardware, these devices are separated by about seven or eight months,
with the original Galaxy Nexus launching in November of last year and the Galaxy S III
launching just a few weeks ago, in late May.
Visually, that's not immediately apparent; coming from the same manufacturer, Samsung,
these devices obviously share a common design language.
But there are some important distinctions right off the bat.
The first thing you'll notice in handling both devices is thickness.
The Galaxy S III at 8.6mm is only marginally slimmer than the Galaxy Nexus' 8.94mm, but
it's a significant drop from the 9.47mm of the LTE version - even more, with the extended
battery in place.
The Galaxy S III also incorporates a larger display, at 4.8 inches diagonal vs 4.65 on
the Nexus, and puts more of that display to use by including a home key and capacitive
buttons at the bottom, rather than using screen real estate for Android's softkeys.
Moving around to the back, a few items have been rearranged, but they're all here: speakerphone,
removable battery cover, and camera with flash - 5MP on the Nexus, and 8MP on the SGS III.
As for the weight, these videos always teach me more about the Galaxy Nexus LTE version
than anything else.
While the standard Galaxy Nexus is only two grams heavier -135g versus 133g on the SGSIII-
the LTE variant weighs in at a much-heavier 150g, making the SGS3 feel positively toy-like
by comparison.
Maybe it's that I've become used to the heft of the LTE Nexus, but the Galaxy S III feels
somewhat chintzy to me.
It doesn't get any help from the cheap-feeling plastic on the back, which displays fingerprints
and skin oil pretty clearly even on my white version here.
The fake brushed metal on the sides wouldn't be so bad if Samsung had managed to better
hide the seam joining the two halves of the phone.
Overall, about the only thing I like better about the SGS3's casing is the glass covering
the display, which curves down into the phone casing in a manner similar to that of the
HTC One X.
In every other respect, the Galaxy Nexus feels better in the hand to me.
Considering I'm already pretty lukewarm on the design of the Nexus, that doesn't say
much for the build on the SGS3.
Samsung still needs to step it up in the design department.
Let's not judge a book by its cover, though; why don't we dive in and see what we're running
on each of these devices.
Both of these phones are running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, but my daily driver, being
a Nexus-branded device, is running stock ICS, whereas the SGS3 is running Samsung's TouchWiz
skin on top.
That makes for a decidedly different user experience.
Where stock Android's "Holo" theme is somewhat stark, with just a hint of techno-blue highlights
and a minimalistic overall feel ... switch hands ... TouchWiz is a bit more bombastic
and showy.
TouchWiz phones are kind of like the guy in the club wearing all the gold bracelets or
... something.
Like with any skin, there are a lot of specialized widgets and customizations, some more useful
than others.
My favorite so far is the utility shortcuts Samsung has built into the notification drawer,
allowing you to toggle WiFi, GPS, ringer, screen rotation, mobile data, and so on.
... I have a similar widget on my Nexus homescreen, but I like its persistent accessibility here.
Samsung hasn't taken a step back everywhere.
As I covered in my editorial following the phone's announcement, the SGS3 is packed with
extra features, like S-Voice, SmartStay, Pop-Up-Play, я.
You'll have to wait for our full review and in depth pieces coming soon for coverage on
all of those, but whether you find them useful or not, you're not going to find them out
of the box on the Galaxy Nexus.
It's something to consider.
As for general feature comparisons, I'm not seeing terribly striking differences in everyday
usage.
Responsiveness is almost a tie, which is saying quite a lot for Samsung, considering how heavy
the TouchWiz layer has felt before.
Of course, the quad-core Exynos in the SGS3 is in another class entirely than the dual-core
TI OMAP in the Galaxy Nexus.
For those of you looking for some benchmarks, here's what I got: Quadrant SGS3: 5622 GNex:
1999 AnTuTu SGS3: 12056 GNex: 6058 Some of you don't want to take my word on the kind
of subjective "feel" of this stuff.
You want cold, hard, numbers and time trials.
I get that.
For me, it doesn't matter if a calendar on one phone loads a half-second faster than
it does on another one, but you know what?
I'm not everyone.
Our differences make us great.
Here's some speed racing for ya.
Okay, we like to start fresh with speed tests, so it makes sense to do the boot comparison
first.
Let's fire these up.
Now, widgets
are part of
the power of Android so I don't find myself hopping into as many apps as I once did, but
let's jump into
the calendar app on each phone.
How'bout the camera.
We always want to be able to jump right into the viewfinder as quickly as possible so as
not to miss that moment.
How'bout a third party app?
Normally I'd say Facebook, but it'll take a whole minute for that laggy mess to load,
so let's try something prettier.
Let's try Flipboard, available on the SGS3 and in beta form on other Android devices.
Let's go for a webpage.
I'm using Google Chrome on both of these devices to load nasa.gov, a fairly graphically intense
site.
Let's see how that goes.
And let's do the same with the stock browser on each phone.
Finally, let's try a little gaming.
Choice of Broadsides, a text based game.
Yeahh!
Yeahhh look at that!
I'm choosing my own adventure!
Hot pixel action!
Okay, we need to try something with more demanding graphics.
I'm not too big into stealing cars or slaying dragons, though, so let's go ahead and grab
a flight sim like F18 Carrier landing.
Enough of that stuff.
The cameras between the devices have been roughly on par in my experience, despite the
megapixel difference and the video resolution.
I took a few stills inside, in fair lighting conditions, and here they are (please insert
photo comparisons).
Some shots are better than others, with the SGS3's shooter coming out on top in sharpness
of focus sometimes, but otherwise the still-shot performance indoors is comparable.
I also shot a quick video comparison.
Check it out.
(Video split screen here, like in Anton's One X vs SGS3 video?)
We'll be doing more in-depth evaluations on the Galaxy S III's camera soon, but so far,
using the camera has called more of my attention to the phones' displays.
The display has been one of the low points of ownership of the Galaxy Nexus for me.
Everything's washed out, whites are dingy and grey, and no amount of backlight seems
to be able to overcome the general pallor that surrounds the screen.
About the best thing I can say about it is that the blacks are deep.
By contrast, the panel on the SGS3, while it's still Super AMOLED and it's still PenTile,
offers much cleaner whites, a far less greenish-yellow tone, and much better saturation.
Everything about it is crisper and cleaner.
Samsung has made multiple settings available in a menu section called Screen Mode, where
you can select what looks like varying levels of saturation.
I know most people say that AMOLED delivers too much saturation.
Call me tacky, but I can never get enough color, so I keep it amped up to "Dynamic"
in this setting.
And I love the results.
(space shuttle comparison image).
So which one's better?
Depends on your use case.
Obviously, if you're looking for the hottest of the newest, the SGS3 is the way to go.
If you're looking for a proven design with stock ICS and timely Android updates (unless
you have an LTE version), it's the Nexus.
We're gonna have lots more SGS3 coverage in the days and weeks ahead, guys, so stay tuned
to Pocketnow for more.
In the meantime, drop me a comment on the post at pocketnow.com if you've got something
to say, give us a thumbs up here on YouTube if you liked the video, and we'll see you
next time!