So, it’s going to arrive sooner on our shores than you might think. The inevitable, and often-speculated-about arrival of Samsung’s flagship handphone, the Galaxy SIII, has more or less been confirmed with Samsung handing out media invites to what is presumably a launch party sometime next week (between 28th May till 1st June). The rumour mill has been going into overdrive with some predictions that are either pretty realistic (HD Super AMOLED screen, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich), over the top (Siri-like functionality) or just downright silly (you can use it to control your microwave). Okay, we made that last one up, but you get the idea.

What’s under the hood?

Let’s take a look at some cold hard facts first and foremost. The Galaxy SIII will be running on Samsung’s own quad-core Exynos processor, clocked at 1.4GHz, with 1GB of onboard RAM. Whilst more power is always welcome, we do have concerns about the battery life of such devices, as such performance will inevitably have an effect on how quickly charge is drained. In a move that seems to be a counter to this concern, Samsung have fitted an unusually large 2,100 mAh battery, which is removable. This moves away from the current trend of using a single polycarbonate chassis with a built-in non-removable battery, as showcased by the iPhone, HTC’s One series and Sony’s Xperia NXT series of phones.

The SIII will have three internal storage options – 16GB, 32GB or 64GB, with microSD expansion up to 64GB also available. In theory, you could carry up to 128GB of storage with you, just on your phone! In addition to that, Samsung are also providing 50GB worth of free DropBox (cloud) usage for 2 years. 178GB worth of storage for you, wherever you go? Sounds like an awesome deal to us.

With HSDPA speeds of up to 21Mbps, WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC connectivity, there is no shortage of options to connect your Galaxy SIII to the world. With a TV-Out link as well, you can easily display high-definition content on any HDTV. On this front, it seems Samsung have all the bases covered.

It’s no DSLR, but it’s quite the snapper.

The 4.8 inch PenTile Super AMOLED screen checks in with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, and uses a similar screen to the Galaxy Nexus. This guarantees vivid colour reproduction and wonderful contrast, so no worries on that front. The cameras for the Galaxy SIII are 8MP for the rear and 1.9MP for the front. The rear camera is capable of shooting 1080P video, with the front capable of shooting 720P videos. With features like Burst mode (20 shots taken in sequence at 3.3 frames per second), Zero Shutter Lag and Best Shot (selects the best picture out of 8 taken in burst mode), the cameras for the Galaxy SIII should be on par with the best in the current market.

Shades of very bland grey.

Samsung can usually be relied on to make more of an effort when it comes to industrial design, but this generation has seen Samsung come up short with its form factor, in relation to the big 3 of Apple, HTC and Sony. Even Nokia’s Lumia series of phones seem to be more adventurous in terms of appearance. Whilst the hardware under the hood is admirable (certainly not ground-breaking, as quad-core is so last month), you would have expected more from the chassis that contains it.

Weighing in at 133g, with dimensions measuring 136.6mm x 70.6mm x 8.6mm, the SIII certainly is thin, and light. The kicker though, is the bland design of the chassis. Whereas the HTC One X can do thin AND sexy, the SIII seems to just do thin. It’s the difference between a supermodel and a victim of anorexia. From a company that designs some of the nicest looking flat-panel TVs you’ll ever see in your lifetime, this comes as a disappointment.

Innovation, Samsung-Style

The major selling points of the Galaxy SIII, hardware aside, have to do with Samsung’s extensive use of customised software to make interaction with the phone more ‘human’. First amongst these technological equals is ‘Smart Stay’. This innovation uses the front-facing camera to detect eye movement and focus, and will keep the screen turned on so long as the user’s eyes are focused on the screen. The screen will sleep once the user looks away. In theory, this works better than the timed intervals that other phones use (as anyone who has tried to use Google Maps and drive at the same time will tell you), although we shall have to wait to see if it actually works in the real world.

Another interesting innovation is Social Tag, which automates the tagging of people in photos you just took. This is based on their likenesses in the contact photos on your phone, and allows you to immediately send copies of the said photo to all the people that have been tagged. It’s also possible to go through your gallery, tap on tagged people in these photos and call or message them straight away. It’s a simple and elegant shortcut, although it could end up being rather gimmicky if people fail to see the value in it.

All of this on Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, which is its own custom skinning of Android (similar to HTC’s Sense). TouchWiz isn’t really ground-breaking either, but is solid enough, with minimal lag and excellent organisational logic employed in its design. Having said that, the icons are not the prettiest ones in the world. It also uses facial and voice recognition as added security features when unlocking your phone from sleep mode.

In conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy SIII is basically what we expected it to be – an improved version of the Galaxy SII. Incorporating technology that is not quite cutting-edge, but still powerful and up-to-date with current market standards, performance should not be an issue. Doubts surround the very bland and average design which achieves the double whammy of being inoffensive and boring. It remains to be seen as to whether or not the other feature list makes up for what is essentially a basic plastic rectangle, although the technical specifications give us hope that the sum will exceed the value of individual parts.

About the Writer

Hailing from Kuching, Sarawak, Syed Rafie is more than just a wordsmith with an unnatural love for electronics, gadgets and video games. Working as a writer and editor at Malaysia’s largest online shopping mall, Lazada Malaysia, he tends to favour pursuits that challenge his lack of physical refinement and his obvious intellectual deficiencies. Connect with him on Google+ (Syed Rafie), or follow him on Twitter (@origamiblade) for more product news, previews, reviews, comparisons and personal thoughts that could mangle your understanding of the space-time continuum.

Fast Hands-On: HTC One X - I just tried the latest flagship device of HTC One X at the PIKOM PC Fair this afternoon, it’s gorgeous! This device sports a 4.7″ Gorilla Glass display with 720×1280 pixels, super fast 8-megapiel camera, 32GB storage, Quad Core Tegra processor and Android 4.0 ICS software.

Well, the phone is very sleek and has a nice design. Despite its big screen, it feels good on hand with the build quality. What I like and amazed the most is the huge 4.7-inch screen with 16M-color Super LCD 2 capacity touchscreen technology, it’s super sharp, in term of color and pixels. Frankly, the screen is even better than the iPhone’s Retina display. The camera is very fast as advertise with no load time. In term of speed, the quad-core processor do serve well with no lag, perhaps there’s no application installed on the phone which explain the smoothness, but then software technology is getting better on Android.

Overall, the HTC One X is currently the best Android smartphone at the moment, to me, it’s even better than the Sony Xperia S. Right now, I am looking forward for the Samsung Galaxy S3, to see how it’s gonna compete with the HTC One X.

Apacer AH128 16GB Flash Drive – I went to the PIKOM PC Fair today at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre and bought myself an Apacer flash drive with capacity of 16GB. It’s a standard USB2.0 flash drive, wanted to find a fast Transcend flash drive but couldn’t find it, end up with a normal, not fast, but beautiful design flash drive from Apacer. Since I am not doing some heavy tasking, I just use the flash drive for saving documents and some image for school and work, so I think this slow speed is acceptable.

What I like the most is the small size and the sleek silver design. It costs RM46. What do you think? By the way, Apacer is a Taiwanese brand.

I full-wipe, clear cache, clear dalvik cache, and installed a clean version of it, then recover the backup from the Gingerbread version that I did before wiping. If you are on MIUI, you can Backup directly in the phone, or if you are coming from other ROM, you can use Titanium Backup to do backup.

The current version of ICS MiUI is stable now, and I am using Siyah kernel on my phone. Battery life is not as good as DarkKnight kernel. The UI is polished to be even better with the use of Roboto font and new Clock, Music & Gallery app.

Another thing I realised is it’s not as smooth as Gingerbread, I wonder is it rom problem or hardware problem, but everything is still acceptable and good. ICS features are all in and what I want now is a kernel with a better battery life. Check out more of the screenshot below.

Messaging and Contact.

Pull-down Notification and Setting Toggles.

Home screen.

Multi-task menu and Browser.

Camera and Calculator.

Alarm and Stop Watch.

Music app which I like the most, new UI with auto find lyrics, album arts and you can search for music on the Internet.

Notes app which you can sync to the cloud with Xiaomi account and the File Manger app.

You can download MiUI ROM here and Siyah Kernel here (Your phone must be rooted and have Clockwork Mod Recovery). Now who says iPhone or Windows Phone has the best UI? =D

Watch Livestream BBC World News TV Online – Today, I’m gonna embed here a window for you to watch the live stream of BBC World News TV online on my blog. Why I want to share it out is I believe many people out there are like me who doesn’t have a connected TV, satellite or cable. I now live in a rental room, the only thing I have is an ‘not-so-fast’ Internet connection, and some times I need to be connected to the news channel to get the latest happenings and breaking news around the world, so live streaming is the solution for me.

BBC (British Broadcasing Corporation) World News is a 24/7 world news from the UK showing international news and current affairs.

Enjoy the stream below and please do give a LIKE if you like this.

Well, I think Instagram itself can be better without the acquisition, but then US$1b is a big money. Soon, you will see more Instagram photos on Facebook, Facebook for sure will tweak the very special app to be usable on all device, and desktop, Instagram will be another photo-editing app instead of a social network (that’s not cool).

What do you think?

I downloaded it right away and found out that it’s pretty same with the iPhone version with less sharing option. After all, you still will see a wonderful experience on it with the cool filter effect for your photography. After the release of the app, my friends followers increased and also many iPhone user dislike about the release of this app because they think that this makes the iPhone no difference and special anymore.

What do you think? Download Instagram for Android now on Google Play Store.

Cool HTC Video – ‘Welcome to HTC One’ – In conjunction with the new release of HTC latest flagship device, HTC One series, they have created a video ‘Welcome to HTC One’, which shows you a phone which was designed with the belief that no one person is the same as everyone else. Check it out.