=^.^=

Samsung Galaxy S III: Sexfone

karma

After a series of rate hikes and cuts to Telus' service coupled with the death of my Optimus One's SD card reader I decided it was time to get a big shiny phone. The kind that I could brag about.

Meet the $649 Samsung Galaxy S III:

Shown here having hot sex with my Optimus

His name is George, and we've become very intimate friends. Here's why:

General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100
Announced 2012, June
Status Available. Released 2012, June
Body Dimensions 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm
Weight 133 g
- Touch-sensitive controls
Display Type Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 720 x 1280 pixels, 4.8 inches (~306 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch Yes
Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 2
- TouchWiz UI v5.0
Sound Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Loudspeaker Yes
3.5mm jack Yes
Memory Card slot microSD, up to 64 GB
Internal 16/32 GB storage, 2 GB RAM
Data GPRS Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE Class 12
Speed HSDPA, 42 Mbps; HSUPA
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP, EDR
NFC Yes
USB Yes, microUSB v2.0 (MHL), USB On-the-go
Camera Primary 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization
Video Yes, 1080p@30fps
Secondary Yes, 1.9 MP, 720p@30fps
Features OS Android OS, v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Chipset Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon
CPU Dual-core 1.5 GHz
GPU Adreno 225
Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer
Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS
Browser HTML, Adobe Flash
Radio No
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support and GLONASS
Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
Colors Pebble blue, Marble white
- MicroSIM card support only
- S-Voice natural language commands and dictation
- Smart Stay eye tracking
- Dropbox (50 GB storage)
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
- SNS integration
- MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
- Organizer
- Image/video editor
- Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
- Voice memo/dial/commands
- Predictive text input (Swype)
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 2100 mAh
Stand-by Up to 200 h
Talk time Up to 10 h

No more lagging. No more crashes. No more having to restart to switch to 3G after leaving a hotspot. Absolutely love Ice Cream Sandwich. One giant problem: does not ship with flash.

I read about Adobe dropping flash support for Android and Linux in general a couple months ago so I wasn't shocked to see it missing. I was perturbed by the fact that it is not possible to install it from Google Play, which automatically opens when one goes to the Get Flash page on Adobe's site. Apparently, it's "not available in [my] country" which I felt was a little racist against Canadians.

The good news is it's still possible to side-load the flash .apk from their Old Version archives at http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html. The page says the last version is intended for Ice Cream Sandwich, so no clue if this will still work once Jellybean has finished rolling out. Contrary to some guides, I'm able to play flash in the stock browser without having to use Dolphin.

Another unfortunate oversight is the lack of USB Mass Storage Device support; one can either connect with the MTP or PTP protocols but this forces (at least) linux users who want to quickly mount the external SD card to use camera software instead. Fortunately, this too can be remedied by side-loading an APK provided by Kopfgeldjaeger at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1711009.

I was tickled when my USB On-The-Go cable worked as soon as I popped it in. My new memory stick launched the stock file browser and my wireless USB keyboard and mouse also worked without intervention. Using a mouse on the phone is pretty friggin cool, if not practical.

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