SamsungGalaxy SIII Sim Free Smartphone - Pebble Blue

I've had this phone for a couple of months now so I feel I know it well enough to write a few words about this. Prior to this I had a HTC Desire, A Google G1, A Sony w880i, A Motorola RAZR V3 and countless other `dumb' phones. So far my experience of the phone has been very positive and I've had absolutely no issues with it whatsoever. It's worked perfectly every day and I've not had any crashes, the interface is very smooth and so far every app and game I've tried runs like a dream. This is my first Samsung Phone so I've no brand loyalty (Only the tenuous link of Android OS). In comparison my girlfriend has a Samsung Galaxy S Advanced which is not so impressive or reliable - but I digress.The phone itself is very sleek and the blue pebble colouring and shine is very nice. Build quality is good - everything feels very solid. Not quite as solid as say the iPhone 4 - but I wouldn't want to drop either to see which is the sturdiest! Every expensive smart phone should be in a tough case with a screen protector!Although many people comment on it's size I really like the extra screen real estate and have had no problems navigating with my thumb. The display is fantastic and so far I've not noticed any of the blue-tint many reviews have commented on. The colours are all vibrant and the high resolution yields plenty of detail. Videos and Youtube look brilliant and it's possible to read many web pages without zooming in.Battery life is okay as far as Smartphones go - the last phone I had with amazing battery life had big buttons and a monochrome screen. Every smartphone owner I know has to charge their phones daily unless they only use it to look at the time. Despite the extra processing power and bigger screen the battery easily outlasts what my old HTC Desire and G1 ever did. And although I was sceptical at first I tried a battery app that automatically switches WiFi and data off when you're not using it and I noticed a big difference.I'm not overly impressed with the 16Gb Storage, I was hoping I could store Apps on SD like a lot of android phones but it's still a massive step up from my HTC Desire (Galaxy S3 Free space out of the box is about 11GB, the Desire was about 70 Mb!). All of my usefull apps are quite small but the games nowadays seem to take up a couple of Gb for the big ones. Although the Apps do not save to SD it's still very handy to have a decent size MicroSD card to keep all your music files, videos and photos on. I've never been sold on using my phone as my main music player - I've been using iPods for a few years so my audio equipment all has the (old) iPod dock connector. All my iTunes music has been matched on the cloud and is DRM free AAC - I've put it straight on my S3's MicroSD and it plays perfectly with no conversion necessary. I have heard that you can get software to make your S3 sync directly with iTunes but I've not had the need to try that yet. I've noticed the sound quality isn't quite as good as my iPod either through earphones or my car stereo, but that's why I have a separate phone and audio device. The built in speaker on the phone isn't the best either, the one my work colleagues with their iPhone 4s's have over the S3. But hands down the S3 is a better overall experience when it comes to functionality and versatility.The internet over HSPA+ is quite nippy when you've got full signal. 4G is probably a long way off from being countrywide so I'm not too bothered about that. Over WiFi the phone is as fast as the actual line speed - I've found myself using the phone for more and more tasks that I used to use my computer for such as Facebook and on-line browsing and shopping. I use Google Drive a fair bit and the apps work okay in that if you want basic word processing and spreadsheets.There are plenty of great games available on the Google Play store and they're getting more and more like fully fledged console games. Shadowrun, N.O.V.A. 3 Reckless Racing 2 and Asphalt 7 all feature amazing graphics and I've never noticed any of them drop a frame yet. GTA 3 is pretty much how I remember the PS2 version to be - amazing to think you can play the entire game on your phone! I'm not completely sold on the phones as gaming devices yet though, the touch screen experience for these type of games is far behind the comfort of a joypad. I found myself enjoying more games that were made with mobiles with touch screens in mind such as Angry Birds and Temple Run. Needless to say the S3 has handled every big game I've tried on it with no problems whatsoever.One more thing I should add about this phone is the durability. I accidentally dropped mine into water. I made sure I knocked it off and dried as much of it as I could straight away before putting it into an airtight container full of rice overnight. I'm not recommending that you try this with your phone but it's good to know it can at least survive a few seconds of complete submersion!

I've always fancied a high spec type of phone having previously owned an htc wildfire, but was always unwilling to spend over the odds for one. With the S4 arriving I thought now was as good a time as any to take the step. Still more than I thought I would ever pay for a phone, but convinced myself I was buying a tablet and a phone.I prefer the HTC type android user interface/skin....and I still do if i'm honest, although would concede that other than the look of the skin it obviously does the same thing.The phone itself is superfast, especially compared to my wildfire, and does what you ask immediately and with no need to touch the button a second time due to the phone not registering my touch. It has plenty of gadgets being an android phone and can handle any app I can throw at it.The quality of the screen is immense and I'm delighted with the quality of playback. The pictures it takes are exceptional (although I'm certainly not an expert on picture quality, it just looks great imo) and the quality of the video is mind blowingly crisp and clear, even in low light conditions.I did worry the phone would be too big, but have been pleasantly surprised at how manageable it is. It is super thin and really light and thus you can sometimes forget it's in your pocket, which considering the size of it is hard to believe. I bought the official samsung cover for it, which replaces the back cover with an attached fold around cover. This mainly protects the screen and not the sides but it also assists and keeping the phone as thin as possible due to not having a fully enclosed cover front and back to bulk up it's size.Battery life isn't great if you use it a lot during the day. If you do use it regularly you will be charging it daily and my first few days with it meant a daily charge. Since then I have onlu used it when required for calls and checking facebook and have made it to the end of a day with over 70% charge remaining. So if you want to watch videos all day and play games then you better keep the charger handy, if you use it a bit more sparingly then you will likely get a good 2 days out of a charge no problem.The only slight downside is it does feel a bit plasticy when comparing to the htc one for example, but doesn't seem detrimental to the overall feel of the phone. If you have butter fingers and drop your phone then you may have issues with the casing, I don't intend to drop it anytime soon so should be fine!!!!!Overall I would say I'm delighted with my purchase and if you want an all singing all dancing phone which looks great and has excellent screen quality in order to play back the excellent HD videos the phone can record....then this is the phone for you and at a fraction of the price of the S4, which does much the same thing.