This week saw the unveiling of Samsung’s flagship new handset, the Samsung Galaxy S3. Following last month’s announcement that Samsung have overtaken Nokia as the world’s largest mobile manufacturers – they shipped 93 million phones in the first quarter of 2012 – the S3 looks set to cement their position as market leader. It also lands a considerable blow to their nearest smartphone rival, the Apple iPhone 4S.

Apple’s next release is thought to be the iPhone 5, but this isn’t expected until the end of summer at the earliest. This means the iPhone 4S will have to hold its own against the mighty Samsung Galaxy S3 deals for the best part of 2012. But has the current iPhone got what it takes to compete with Samsung’s new smartphone behemoth?

Under The Hood

A quick look at internal specs show just how powerful both handsets are. Running on a 800 MHz dual-core Apple A5 processor, and with 512 MB of memory, the iPhone 4S has impressed us with its smooth user experience, fast processing speeds, and ease of multitasking. It would appear, however, that the dual core processor may soon be out-dated, as quad-core processors begin to infiltrate the smartphone market. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is at the forefront of the quad-core revolution, packing in a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor to make it one of the most powerful smartphones on the market. The Galaxy S3’s 1GB of memory also trumps the iPhone 4S’s 512 MB, making it both powerful and lightning fast. Weighing in at just 133g, all this power is concealed in a package that is 7g lighter than the iPhone, meaning you can carry around one of the most powerful smartphones in the world, without even noticing it’s in your pocket.

Does Size Matter?

The success of Samsung’s recent smartphone/tablet hybrid, the Samsung Galaxy Note proved one thing – smartphone users like a big screen. From games to browsing to watching videos, people like to see their multimedia on large shiny HD display. Samsung have taken note (no pun intended), and beefed the Galaxy’s screen from the 4.3 inches of the S2 up to an impressive 4.8inches for the S3. The screen itself has been pushed closer to the edge of the handset, resulting in a much larger display without drastically increasing the size of the phone, and dwarfing the 3.5 inch display of the iPhone 4S.

As well as the size of the screen, a pin sharp HD resolution also adds to the desirability of any smartphone, and both handsets hold their own in this particular arena. The awesome Retina display of the iPhone 4S packs in a 326ppi pixel density, which offers a screen as clear as crystal. Not too far behind is the Samsung Galaxy S3, with a 306ppi pixel density on its new Amoled screen (for any acronym fans, that stands for Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode), which also offers a striking HD display. With the both handsets offering such stunning visuals, the sheer size of the Galaxy S3’s screen really does make the most of its high resolution display, and we’ll be surprised if the new iPhone doesn’t appear with an extra inch or so in the screen department.

You Talkin’ To Me?

No cutting-edge smartphone is complete without its own array of unique features and innovations. The main talking point of the iPhone 4S was the inclusion of Siri, which utilises voice recognition software to carry out a range of functions, as well as using the phone’s internet access to answer questions spoken by the user. Committed to keeping up with the neighbours, The Samsung Galaxy S3 comes with a new voice activation interface dubbed as S Voice. While this may not be as advanced as Siri, it does allow spoken instructions to activate many of the phone’s functions, such as playing music, sending texts or emails, and taking photographs.

But the Samsung Galaxy S3 doesn’t just know when you’re talking to it, it also knows when you’re looking at it. The 1.9 megapixel front camera also comes with eye-recognition software, which means that the phone won’t lock or go dark so long as it can see you’re looking at it. Whether this will turn out to be a useful innovation or a battery draining annoyance remains to be seen, but it proves that Samsung are committed to staying on the cutting edge of smartphone advances. Read on how the Apple iPhone 5 technology may change everything.

Head to head

With the Galaxy S3, Samsung have proved once again why they’re dominating the smartphone market, and have delivered a product that will be valuable in retaining their crown. The Galaxy S2 was one of the bestselling handsets of the past year, and we’ll eat our quad-core processor if the S3 doesn’t follow the same trend. With a range of impressive specs and new innovations, the new iPhone release later this year has a lot to live up to if Apple are to match the high benchmark set by Samsung with the Galaxy S3.

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