Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone unveiled

Samsung has unveiled its latest flagship smartphone - the Galaxy S3.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17935684

Another shiny-shiny new piece of gadgetry on the market, with the Galaxy S3 marking the next round of smartphone generations - quad-cores, super displays, mega megapixels etc.

Despite my fawning interest in the latest gadgets, I admit I do think that when it comes to smartphones I'm nearing 'feature-saturation'; while for years always had a personal wishlist of things I'd like to see on my phone, being honest currently in my tablet and phone I think I have pretty much all the things I'd really use (tho not of course all the things that would be nice to have). This is not to say all the generations have just been pointless gimickry, things like wifi tethering, good multitasking, media streaming and copious memory were all in my view valueable new elements, but overall I've suspected that the latest range of was due to include mere improvements on such existing funcitons, rather than additions of new really useful ones.  In particular I thought quad-cores weren't something I really needed on a phone. However, having looked at the latest S3 features, I think I might actually be proved wrong:

The most notable (to me) features :

• 4.8 screen with 309ppi Super AMOLED display. Probably about as large and detailed as need get in my view (maybe too large, will have to hold to decide)
• 1.4 GHz quad-core with 1GB of RAM
• smart power system whereby front camera tracks eyes and dims screen if detects you're not looking at it. Could be a nice feature if works seamlessly.
• video-in-corner to allow do other tasks in parallel. While might seem pretty useless, personally have often been watching a documentary or something and want to scribble a note, thought etc. in parallel.
• streaming to TV, streaming from PC
• 50 GB of dropbox space
• mirror function : send screen output to another device. Very cool for gaming (and reminds me of the main reason I broke with Apple: because on my IPOD touch the TV out was disabled by fiat - but supported by hardware as evidenced by jailbreaked versions -  from outputting games to TV)
• 8MP camera with flash. Probably nearing as good as one can get with the squashed optics on a phone (at least without some new step change in technology)
• voice control seems to be the big new thing, and Samsung has it's own version S voice (to rival Apple's Siri) but I'm still not convinced this will really work out - tho admittedly have yet to try the latest systems
• some deal with renting movies via the phone (good when coupled with stream to tv option)
  

Apart from the ability to write a message without interrupting a video, the areas where I think such (and presumably other 2012) phones do stand out is in movies and gaming. As someone who often rents movies on itunes and connects my ipod to TV to play it back, the possibility to rent on the phone, and stream to the TV is very appealing. Furthermore as an occasional gamer, but not committed enough to buy the latest consoles, the play on screen with phone as controller, backed by high processing power, is indeed something that I woudl actually consider a bonus, and not just a gimmick.
And of course while happy enough with my current phone camera, 12MP plus flash,plus processing features while not a quantum step (and already probably in plenty of recent phones) does bring this area to perhaps it's final level.

So all in all surprisingly impressed by the latest Galaxy, and just hope that large screen fits in my Christmas stocking (and budget) :-)