Available on Google Play, free for a week than 2.99 Euros for lifetime use.

You can download the beta version here.

Find the thread on XDA here.

I suggest you grab some snacks and Tea before you start, the video is just under 80 minutes long.

Source: Samsung

The device was being touted as the biggest launch of the year, the device is powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos processor with 1GB of RAM. It has a 2,100 mAh battery which sounds okay but to be honest I did expect it be slightly bigger in capacity.

In terms of specifications the Samsung Galaxy S III features an 8mega-pixel 1080p HD camera, a 1.9 megapixel front facing camera, 16, 32 and 64GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, a huge 4.8 inch 720p Super AMOLED display (no Plus as we’d hoped).

The SIII will come running on Android 4.0.4, that’s the latest version of Android, of course it’ll come with the Marmite TouchWiz UI that does look better than previous iterations but still mehh.. Samsung didn’t go too much into the hardware aspect of the phone, instead we got a whole lot more information about the software and features, which may sound gimmicky to some but still rather intriguing for the moment.

Firstly there’s S-Voice which will allow you to do more than what you would assume voice action could do (think Siri). You can say “start camera” and it’ll do that, say “cheese” and it’ll take a picture. The Siri-like commands will bring up weather information and all sorts of other stuff.

An interesting feature called “Smart stay” will utilise the front-facing camera to track your eyes. The phone will know if you’re looking at the screen, if so, it’ll stop the screen from dimming or turning off.

Another interesting feature which I’m curious to see is the ability to call the person you’re messaging just by  putting the phone  to your ear. Will it be gimmicky? Maybe, we’ll let you know alongside the rest of our thoughts once we get the device to review.

The phone will be available to purchase at the end of the month for all European customers, a global launch will be a short while later, in the summer. In the UK, you’ll be able to preorder the flagship device starting pretty soon on the following Networks: Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and Three

Samsung also announced some accessories, which include the wireless charger, S-pebble MP3 player, AllCast wireless dongle which you can plug into your TV using HDMI and then mirror your phone without wires over to your TV.

So what do I think about the Samsung Galaxy SIII so far?  Design wise, I don’t feel it has moved away from what we know with Samsung, I’m sure people will still call it “cheap looking” and I’m not too sure about the “glossy” look but the device does still have some of the sexiness the Galaxy Nexus has.

So what’s your opinion on the Samsung Galaxy S III, will you be purchasing it? Let us know in the poll below and leave us a comment telling us why.

Rumors and speculation of the Samsung Galaxy S3 ”Next Galaxy” have been flying around all over the place, it’s difficult to come out unscathed.

I’m going to leave you with some more information about what we know so far about the device, of course some of it is confirmed while some of it is speculation, keep reading if you’re interested.

Form Factor…

In terms of form factor, we expect the device to be slightly larger than the Samsung Galaxy S2, various leaks portray a device very similar in design to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, minus the onscreen navigation keys, instead we should be seeing the more recognised 3 button layout.

Screen Size…

A recently leaked screen protector for the device, suggests the “Next Galaxy” may have a slightly larger screen size than the HTC One X. The One X has a 4.7 inch screen, so if the “Next Galaxy” does indeed have a slightly larger screen than the One X, it’ll probably be 4.8inches. This is plausible, however it’s still uncertain but we do expect the device to come with something between 4.6inches and 4.8inches. The screen will most likely be 720p Super AMOLED, lets hope it’s a non-Pentile Super AMOLED HD Plus display.

Processor…

Processor wise, it’s pretty much confirmed that we’ll see the Exynos 4 Quad in the “Next Galaxy”, but this is most likely for the International model (UK included). There’s speculation that some American versions of the device will be getting the Snapdragon S4 from Qualcomm instead, it’s possible that the latest Exynos isn’t ready for LTE networks in the US.

Software…

In terms of software, we’ll see Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.x) and (love it or hate it) the latest version of Touchwiz.

Camera…

Camera wise, some rumors suggest 12Megapixels while others suggest 8Megapixels. I’m not to bothered about this one, I’ll be happy with an 8Megapixel camera with better optics than a mediocre 12Megapixel camera. Check out our “HTC One X vs Sony Xperia S [Camera Test]” article and you’ll understand why, lets hope the “Next Galaxy” can beat the HTC One X in terms of camera performance.

That’s all folks, all will be unveiled later tonight at 19:00 (BST), you can watch the event live on facebook.com/SamsungMobile or if you want to watch it on your Android tablet or phone, download the Samsung Unpacked Application.

Are you excited? Let us know what your expectations for the device are in the comments section below.

Free on Google Play

Free on Google Play

Unfortunately Sense UI started to become somewhat bloated and felt rather over-the-top, hence the reason why many people decided to stay away from HTC. Now, HTC once again attempts to reclaim its throne with the HTC One X, in this review we’ll look at every aspect of the device and decide on whether HTC is still in the game or not. 

Design / Hardware…

“HTC has decided not to follow Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich style of implementing the navigation keys…”

Design wise, the One X looks stunning, the curved back makes it natural to hold but it still feels somewhat big. The dimensions of the device are 134.36 x 69.9 x 8.9 mm, which is pretty big  but surprisingly it only weights 130g, and that’s pretty light weight  considering  HTC managed to pack a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 screen into the device. The poly-carbonate chassis on the One X feels smooth and pleasant to hold                                                                but it feels slightly cheap compared to other HTC devices using metal bodies such as the HTC Sensation. The One X has curved glass edges just around the screen, similar to what you may have seen on Nokia’s Lumia 800,  it makes the device look very curved and natural. From the side of the device, the curved back makes it look very similar to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, however unlike the Galaxy Nexus‘s software navigation keys, the One X uses dedicated keys beneath the screen. HTC has decided not to follow Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich style of implementing the navigation keys, but still provides the same keys consisting of the back, home and task switcher keys in a physical capacitive form.

Despite HTC not implementing the soft keys, the One X is still roughly the same length as the Galaxy Nexus, although slightly thicker. The problem I faced not having a menu key was when I ran an application that wasn’t optimised for ICS, a soft 3 dot menu button would appear just above the physical keys occupying valuable screen real-estate. This issue should subside once the applications are updated, but for now, it’s quite annoying and unavoidable.

Inspecting the device further, you’ll find a 1.3megapixel front facing camera on the top right, to the left of that is the earpiece speaker that has been integrated into the poly-carbonate shell. The volume rocker can be found on the right edge, and on the left edge you’ll find the micro-USB port which is also MHL capable. On the top edge of the One X you’ll find a micro-SIM tray built into the unibody, you’ll have to use a metal pin or the supplied HTC Sim ejector in order to access the tray. Both the headphone socket and the power button can also be found on the top. The power button is also used to wake the screen, it would have made better sense to put the key on the right edge, as it would have been easier to reach with your thumb rather than having to stretch your index finger to the top. looking at the back of the device, you’ll find the 8megapixel “ImageSense” camera and single LED Flash which noticeably protrudes from the phone, on the back you’ll also find a five-pin connector along the bottom right side of the device for future docking accessories.

On the back of the One X you’ll also find the loud speaker on the bottom of the device, and just above that the Beats Audio logo, oddly enough the One X didn’t come with Beats Audio headphones, instead HTC provided us with their own headphones which I’ve never been too fond of. The provided HTC headphones didn’t produce much bass and didn’t sound too good although after I plugged in some Beats By Dre Tours into the device, the music listening experience drastically improved but not enough to justify the price tag of Beats By Dre headphones.

Underneath the poly-carbonate body, the device comes with 32GB of internal memory, with only 25GB of this accessible to the user. The HTC One X is running Google’s latest version of Android, that’s Android version 4.0.3, it’s also comes with HTC’s latest Sense version of 4.0. So what’s running this device I hear you ask, it’s NVIDIA’s 1.5GHz quad-core (plus one) Tegra 3, and the device also comes with the expected 1GB of RAM. Much like the Galaxy Nexus, HTC has added NFC to the device, allowing you to use the Android Beam functionality to exchange contacts and much more simply by tapping the phone against another NFC equipped ICS phone.

Screen…

“…on the non-PenTile One X, colors appear a lot more natural and the whites were much whiter.”

For a screen that isn’t AMOLED, I was quite surprised to see how vibrant it is, the Super LCD 2 display on the One X is very bright and crisp, it also has great viewing angles and doesn’t suffer from over-saturated colors you find on AMOLED displays. The resolution of the screen is 720p at 4.7 inches, that equates to a pixel density of 316ppi which makes it just as sharp and clear as the Galaxy Nexus. Even though the screen is exceptionally vibrant, the contrast ratio seems quite bad and doesn’t give you true blacks like you would get on an AMOLED display, never the less it isn’t something that you would notice unless you put the phone beside a Galaxy SII or Galaxy Nexus.

Unlike the Galaxy Nexus, on the non-PenTile One X, colors appear a lot more natural and the whites are much whiter. When using the device outdoors, you have to put the  brightness all the way up, once that’s done, the screen becomes somewhat more readable but still not as good as I would want it to be, but that’s nothing new. Another thing the One X beats the Galaxy Nexus by is its use of Gorilla Glass which has been proven to be very durable, however watching HTCPedians drop test, I expected it to do better.

Overall the Super LCD 2 display looks stunning, it’s one of the crispest and brightest screens I’ve seen but personally I still prefer Super AMOLED due to its better black levels and vibrant colors.

Camera…

 ”…the camera on the One X is by far the best thing about the device…”

As mentioned earlier in the design/hardware segment, The HTC One X has an 8megapixel shooter supported by HTC’s dedicated “ImageSense” chip, that’s capable of shooting 1080p video, it has got a single LED flash that’s more than capable of lighting up a dark area but I would have been more happier seeing Xenon flash, which would have obviously been better.                                                                                                                  At the front of the device, you’ll find a 1.3Megapixel camera, which is more than adequate for video chat, but anything beyond that is a no go. The rear facing camera has a lens with an impressive f/2.0 aperture, which is one of the best you can find on a camera phone at the moment. Right off the bat I can tell you that the camera on the One X is by far the best thing about the device, it completely obliterates the megapixel myth (marketing strategy) that’s used by manufactures to seduce consumers and truly demonstrates what good optics can do when taking pictures.

The 8megapixel snapper on the HTC One X does a really good job in daylight, no surprise there, it even takes great pictures in low light, thank the  f/2.0 aperture for that. To get an idea of how the camera performs, check out the pictures below taken with the HTC One X in different scenarios.

Pictures taken with the HTC One X…

By no means am I a photography expert, nor do I pretend to be, but based on what I do know and of course my personal opinion, I can say with clear conviction that the One X sports an amazing camera, it demonstrates what good optics can do and clearly demonstrates that it’s not all about the pixels, the larger aperture and low focal width of the lens used in One X makes it an amazing device to take pictures with. The One X captures a lot of detail with quick shutter turnaround, and also manages to take pictures quickly in low-light conditions, it does this by focusing fairly quick.

As you’ve seen from the images above, the One X is capable of shooting some very good images, you get accurate colors of the subject rather than the over-exaggerated color vibrancy some phones tend to produce. A great feature I love on the One X is, when you hold down the camera button, the One X automatically goes into some cool super-fast shooting mode, allowing you to take 99 shots in one go, letting go of the camera button reveals a timeline of the images so that you can pick out the ones you like, and of course also allowing you to delete the ones you don’t.

All in all, the One X has a great camera,  but of course there are other things to consider when buying a camera phone, it’s the usability of the device, the One X doesn’t have a dedicated camera shutter button and also doesn’t support quick shooting from standby as the Sony Xperia S does. However, the One X takes pictures a lot quicker. In our Xperia S review, Andy praised the camera for its quickness, and it deserved to be praised but now the One X simply outdoes it in terms of performance. In my opinion the One X is without doubt the best camera phone out on the market right now. Check out our “HTC One X vs Sony Xperia S [Camera Test]” article for more details on the camera.

Day Light Video Sample…

Night Video Sample…

As mentioned earlier, the One X is capable of shooting 1080p Full HD video, as you can see from the day light sample, the picture quality itself is very good, but the colors weren’t as vibrant as I would have liked, mind you, it was a quite a dull day for shooting video. Even though the video quality itself is good, panning around does produce a jerking effect, but it’s tolerable. In terms of shooting video at night, I wouldn’t say it performed worse than other phones, nor did it perform better. It had difficulty focusing, and of course as to be expected, the video was fairly grainy.

There are a few features I really liked about the camcorder, pressing the camera button during video shooting allows you to snap pictures at the same time and if you forgot to take a picture, you can snap 1920 x 1080 images by pressing the camera button when watching the video itself; very cool indeed.

Software…

“…Sense 4.0 is an improvement from what we’ve seen before, but HTC still has a long way to go. ” 

There’s so much to discuss about the new Sense, that this review could easily turn into something extremally boring and long, so I’ll try and cover just the main points. The latest version of HTC’s Custom Skin, Sense 4.0 comes bundled on top of Android 4.0.3, if you purchase the One X, there’s no avoiding that.

There’s no point going into whether we need Sense 4.0 or not, as opinions are subjective and there are equal amounts of people in both camps. From personal usage, I felt Sense UI had started to become somewhat bloated and felt rather over-the-top, I can tell you straight away, that this new Sense is nothing like the old version. It’s not bogged down by useless animations and unnecessary over-the-top UI. Obviously it isn’t stock Ice Cream Sandwich, which I would have preferred to be honest but in terms of user experience, HTC has managed to marry ICS with Sense quite effectively. As expected from Sense, HTC includes a plethora of additional widgets and applications that some might find useful and some might consider as bloat. Generally I didn’t face any slowdowns, the software was very smooth, and much smoother than what I’ve used before, so all in all, HTC is heading in the right direction, never the less, there’s still a long way to go.

When using the HTC One X, I still feel that there are still some kinks that HTC needs to iron out, Google has done a great job with Android 4.X, so it’s hard for me to understand why HTC would chose to try and reinvent the wheel. There’s no need to fix something that isn’t broken, for example the stock Android way of adding widgets to the home screen works really well, the reason why HTC decided to make it similar to what we’ve seen on Android 3.0 is beyond me.

Overall, Sense 4.0 is an improvement from what we’ve seen before, but HTC still has a long way to go.

Benchmarking…

 “…in terms of real life performance the One X doesn’t disappoint either.”

Firstly, we mention this all the time, but it’s essential that you’re reminded, don’t worry too much about benchmarks.  The Galaxy Nexus has always scored low compared to other devices, but it’s still very smooth and fast, the score doesn’t represent it’s true value, thus the score the One X get’s may not either.

So, now that the first Quad-core device has arrived, the first Tegra 3 smartphone, I’m sure you all want to know what it scores on benchmarks, the One X scored the following results, from Linpack and Quadrant.

Linpack

• HTC One X – 161 (Multi Thread)
• Galaxy Note – 93 (Multi Thread)
• Xperia S – 89 (Multi Thread)
• Galaxy SII – 82 (Multi-Thread)
• HTC Sensation – 69 (Multi-Thread)
• Galaxy Nexus – 38 (Multi Thread)

Quadrant

• HTC One X – 4,500
• Galaxy Note – 3,132
• Xperia S – 2,650
• HTC Sensation – 2176
• Galaxy Nexus – 1810

You can see the scores are very high, I’m sure that’s what we all expected, and in terms of real life performance the One X doesn’t disappoint either. I ran plenty of games on the device to see how far I could push it, I played Riptide GP, which is optimised for Tegra devices, it ran very smooth but no surprises there.  I even played Grand Theft Auto 3 on the device, it loaded without problems and ran without any lag what so ever. I also tried less intensive games on the device, games like Angry Birds and Cut The Rope, no surprises here either, the games ran better than expected.

In terms of actual phone usage, it was very fast and smooth, moving from screen to screen was effortless, launching applications was relatively fast although I did expect the browser to perform slightly better. The One X was slightly slower to render web-pages compared to phones like the Galaxy Nexus or the Xperia S, however it did perform well while panning and scrolling through web-pages.

Check out Andy’s comparison videos  below:

HTC One X vs Sony Xperia S Browser Test

Sony Xperia S vs HTC One X (Boot time, GPS, Speaker tests)

Battery…

“I expected the device to last a little longer…”

Regardless of the One X’s rather large size, HTC has managed to make it  8.9 mm thin, they did this by making it a unibody design, and placing a non-user-accessible 1,800 mAh battery. The battery is certainly larger than what we’ve seen on many phones, but it’s definitely a necessity for something with a Quad-core processor and 4.7inch screen.

I managed to get nearly 13 hours from the device through moderate usage. I took the phone off charge at 8:30am, I checked my email here and there, made a few calls, sent a few messages, took some pictures, played a little bit of Angry Birds and browsed through social networks as well, by 9pm I had to plug the phone back into the wall.

I expected the device to last a little longer, but apparently there’s a reason for that;  it’s an issue with an app called NvCPLSvc.apk, which was placed in the wrong directory. It should have been placed under the system\app directory, but is instead located at system/bin. An unofficial fix is available and appears somewhat simple: you need to move the NvCPLSvc.apk file to the right place and change the file’s permissions. You can do this through ADB, all instructions can be found at XDA Developers’ site. Users who have followed the instructions on XDA have reported a 10%-20% increase in battery life,  I haven’t personally tried this fix, but I’m sure HTC will include it in one of their Software updates very soon.

Conclusion…

“I installed Apex launcher on the One X, a home replacement application for Android 4.0+ devices, this vastly improved the user experience…”

Why Buy

• Looks and feels great
• Stunning display
• Amazing camera
• Fast and smooth

Why Not To Buy

• Sense UI still needs a lot of work
• Battery life needs improvement

The HTC One X is a stunning device, it has a poly-carbonate body that looks and feels great, the 4.7ich Super LCD2 display looks great for something that isn’t AMOLED. The Quad-core Tegra 3 inside the device, makes it a joy to use, it’s very fast and smooth, you can throw anything at this device and it’ll handle it without struggling. The HTC One X is a beautifully constructed device, that even gives the Galaxy Nexus a run for its money. Overall the device is one of the best Android phones I’ve ever used, but I’ll tell you what really sets this device apart from the others, it’s the “ImageSense” camera.

The 8megapixel camera on the device is extremely fast and easy to use, it’s just one of the best camera phones I’ve used. It takes great pictures, the photos it takes are true to the real life subject, colors aren’t exaggerated, they just look right.

All in all the One X is great, there are just a few things that let it down. The battery life could have been better, lets hope HTC fixes the battery bug as soon as possible. Another problem with the device is HTC Sense, as much as its improved, there’s still a long way to go. There are still lots of unnecessary design elements in Sense, that we can do without. Android 4.0/ICS has done a great job, so there’s no need for HTC to change things that are already working. I installed Apex launcher on the One X, a home replacement application for Android 4.0+ devices, this vastly improved the user experience, I would suggest that you give it a try if you’ve already purchased the One X.

Would I recommend this device? I certainly would, as I’ve said before, it’s a great device. Should you purchase the One X now? I would advice against that, I suggest you wait and see what Samsung has to offer on the 3rd of May before you make your decision.

On the looks side of things, the browser looks identical to that of the stock browser, with the same simple but elegant look greeting your screens. There is one slight difference though, as on tablets there is a home button placed along the URL bar. Tabs are also the same to, with the + for tabs still available on phones, along with the chrome like tabbing on tablets. In fact, the two are so similar that the majority of people may and probably would mistake it for the stock ICS browser, but head into the settings and

everything changes.

Quick controls is the main stand out feature, with it giving you the option to disable the URL bar and main control bar in favour for a circular like set of icons which are accessible through sliding in from the left and the right of the page. You can still enable the URL bar by swiping down though. Once into quick control you can access different features by holding down your finger and manually moving it to the feature you want. While this finger down feature is good at first, it can get a bit tedious. There is also the option to edit what’s in the Quick Control bar, with the option to edit each ring and add extra rings. You can also edit the trigger zone and how big the circle shape is.

Gestures are another major feature, and allow you to add in actions for swiping left and right. These actions are all associated with web browsing, and range from page back/forwards to closing the current tab. Along with this, you can also change the sensitivity of the swipes.

Other features include auto text reflow when pinching to zoom, full screen browsing, changing the user agent and also being able to scroll using the volume keys, of which I have no idea why someone would do that… Maybe they don’t like touch screens?

Performance is overall very good, and may even be a tad faster than that of the stock browser. Scrolling is really very good, and is super smooth with minimal lag.

Overall, ICS browser + has managed to do the impossible. Taken an already fantastic browser, and made it that bit better, with the added functionality and features. Some of which are actually very useful. This is definitely the browser to try out if you need a new one for your ice cream sandwich running device.

Market link :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beansoft.browserplus#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiY29tLmJlYW5zb2Z0LmJyb3dzZXJwbHVzIl0.