Get floored by the Galaxy SIII

Siri not talking to you? No problem, S Voice is more than willing to talk (and listen) to you. And more importantly talk sense. This nifty little feature in Samsung’s massive new baby Galaxy SIII is just one among a raft of new features that it feels will be a game-changer in the smartphone segment. So confident are the boys from Korea that they have thrown the gauntlet at Apple and co by claiming the title of the ‘most smart smartphone’ on earth for the SIII. Come to think of it, one must admit the SIII is indeed the most brilliant phone to come out of the Samsung assembly line by a mile. Powered by the latest Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich and packing a walloping 1.4GHz quad core processor punch, things gallop at F1 speed on the SIII. The gorgeously designed phone however, shows its true colours when viewing videos, pictures or browsing the web with its ample 4.8” HD super amoled screen displaying everything in vivid colours and detail. Samsung has got around the problem of having a big screen by meshing the edges closer to the screen and making the phone slimmer than Angelina Jolie (with as much oomph, mind you). Feast of features There’s an 8MP camera and a 1.9MP front-facing camera offering intelligent features and face recognition options. The zero shutter-lag camera allows you to click images in a whirr. The ‘Burst shot’ feature allows you to capture up to 20 continuous shots. The ‘Pop up play’ feature allows you to play a video (recording and playback in full HD) while simultaneously running other tasks. You can also capture images in the middle of recording a video. One of the many innovative features is ‘Smart stay’, where the phone uses face/eye recognition with the front camera that knows when you are using the screen. No more screens going dark when you are reading Paulo Coelho or browsing the web (we know how frustrating that can be). Coming back to S Voice, in addition to allowing information search and basic device-user communication, S Voice can be used to set the alarm, call/message someone, play your favourite songs/videos, turn the volume up or down, send e-mails, organise your schedules, or automatically launch the camera and capture a photo. The important thing here is that Samsung claims this feature works seamlessly in the UAE and across different accents, where the iPhone’s Siri is facing problems. The SIII has also brought near field communication (NFC) on board with its own ‘S beam’ whereby you merely touch two devices having S beam and transfer data between the devices. With ‘AllShare Cast’, users can wirelessly connect their SIII to the TV to transfer content onto a larger display. ‘AllShare Play’ can be also used to share files between SIII and your tablet, PC, and TV regardless of the distance between the devices. It can also double up as a gaming console when you connect it to a PC or TV. The phone retails for Dh2,499 (16GB). The 32GB model will be available soon