A new phone, and various thoughts
I jumped straight into a Galaxy S III as my first smartphone with minimal experience in the entire category. My expectations were high.
I love it.
Having the capacity for connection everywhere is critical to me. I can be away from a computer and not be severed from email, IM, web, the world. I don't have to respond to a request and complete the handshake; but now I can see the offer being made and have the choice to accede.
I don't use video on the phone much at all, but I have the capacity if I need it. This device compresses many others into one: mp3 player (48 GB storage), camera, alarm clock, ebook reader, phone, chat client, web browser, alarm clock. In every case it's either the best of anything I have at what it does - in some, the only one.
Here, convergence is simplicity - no worrying about configuring different tools, forgetting them, having to carry them all to various places. if you choose to have and use any tool, it should be a good one which works well and is a pleasure to use; the Galaxy has a gorgeous screen (full 720p in this form factor! that's insane compared to a monitor, let alone a TV - the sharpness is breathtaking, and makes me want a quad HD screen so badly..) and feels great.
I have some qualms with it. It is not a full desktop computer, and communication with it is relatively awful. It is, I hear, possible to type 60 WPM on these things; I, however, cannot yet - and even the fastest speeds reachable are still far too slow to match the smooth, effortless communication of a full keyboard. Chatting can be agony and writing or taking notes is all but impossible. It doesn't play games I'm interested in or provide a cinematic movie or tv experience, but knowing that it simply can't in that form factor, I don't hold that against it in the slightest. It does come closer to meeting that of a good e-book reader, which I would very much like it to, but is still small enough that a tablet would obviously be better; but the idea of throwing down a couple hundred bucks more on something a little more comfortable which does the same thing as what I already have and need seems ridiculous. Maybe if I had the chance with a tablet for a week I'd grow to love it so much all those extra costs and aggravations would be worth it, but for now I'm happy with the phone.
The music player is surprisingly good for not having dedicated buttons. I can type what I want, and that's usually better; it even has the functionality to play songs in order but shuffle lists, making it easy to navigate between sections of your collection erratically, find what you like, and then stick with it. Media browsing is still limited, imperfect, and aggravating compared to a computer but it's leaps and bounds above anything else.
All in all, it demolishes the iPhone 4 with that phone's atrociously undersized display. It's hard to understand how big the difference is until you see it in person; but even in a still image, you can get the picture. I think everyone agrees that large screens have won the phone war by now. Time will tell what the iPhone 5 and the next Androids bring to the table. Hopefully, my timing wasn't abysmal and this doesn't get completely outmoded with the next release; nonetheless, it serves me very well right now and is better than any competitor.
I love it.
Having the capacity for connection everywhere is critical to me. I can be away from a computer and not be severed from email, IM, web, the world. I don't have to respond to a request and complete the handshake; but now I can see the offer being made and have the choice to accede.
I don't use video on the phone much at all, but I have the capacity if I need it. This device compresses many others into one: mp3 player (48 GB storage), camera, alarm clock, ebook reader, phone, chat client, web browser, alarm clock. In every case it's either the best of anything I have at what it does - in some, the only one.
Here, convergence is simplicity - no worrying about configuring different tools, forgetting them, having to carry them all to various places. if you choose to have and use any tool, it should be a good one which works well and is a pleasure to use; the Galaxy has a gorgeous screen (full 720p in this form factor! that's insane compared to a monitor, let alone a TV - the sharpness is breathtaking, and makes me want a quad HD screen so badly..) and feels great.
I have some qualms with it. It is not a full desktop computer, and communication with it is relatively awful. It is, I hear, possible to type 60 WPM on these things; I, however, cannot yet - and even the fastest speeds reachable are still far too slow to match the smooth, effortless communication of a full keyboard. Chatting can be agony and writing or taking notes is all but impossible. It doesn't play games I'm interested in or provide a cinematic movie or tv experience, but knowing that it simply can't in that form factor, I don't hold that against it in the slightest. It does come closer to meeting that of a good e-book reader, which I would very much like it to, but is still small enough that a tablet would obviously be better; but the idea of throwing down a couple hundred bucks more on something a little more comfortable which does the same thing as what I already have and need seems ridiculous. Maybe if I had the chance with a tablet for a week I'd grow to love it so much all those extra costs and aggravations would be worth it, but for now I'm happy with the phone.
The music player is surprisingly good for not having dedicated buttons. I can type what I want, and that's usually better; it even has the functionality to play songs in order but shuffle lists, making it easy to navigate between sections of your collection erratically, find what you like, and then stick with it. Media browsing is still limited, imperfect, and aggravating compared to a computer but it's leaps and bounds above anything else.
All in all, it demolishes the iPhone 4 with that phone's atrociously undersized display. It's hard to understand how big the difference is until you see it in person; but even in a still image, you can get the picture. I think everyone agrees that large screens have won the phone war by now. Time will tell what the iPhone 5 and the next Androids bring to the table. Hopefully, my timing wasn't abysmal and this doesn't get completely outmoded with the next release; nonetheless, it serves me very well right now and is better than any competitor.
