Samsung Ativ S vs Galaxy S3
Samsung has been practicing internal competition in various ways, and that presents the company with the advantage of a wide variety of product portfolio. With the announcement of Samsung Ativ S, they bring that to a whole new level. So far, Samsung was renowned for the Android smartphones they offer, and now they have announced the first ever Windows Phone 8 smartphone at the IFS 2012 in Berlin. With this, they have added another high end Windows Phone to their diversified product portfolio.
In fact, most of the market researches were surprised by the Samsung Ativ S for it was such a fine handset with a lot to offer. Despite Microsoft assuring that Windows Phone 8 would perform great, what it has in offer is yet to be experienced by end-users. Fundamentally, it is to come with the Metro style user interface and we can assume it to perform seamlessly with all the processing power thrown at the operating system. Besides that, we’ll have to wait some more time to explore it. However, as of now, we can compare the hardware specs of Samsung Ativ S to that of Samsung Galaxy S3, which is the flagship device of Samsung.
Samsung Ativ S Review
This Windows Phone 8 smartphone feels good in your hands but lacks the striking looks of its competitors since Ativ S looks plain and simple. It is housed in a 137.2 x 70.5mm exterior with a thickness of 8.7mm. Samsung calls this form factor as “chic hairline design”. The 4.8 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen is present as would in any Samsung high end smartphone. It features a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 306ppi and the screen in reinforced with Corning Gorilla glass to make it scratch resistant. Samsung followed their usual Android button and included a physical button in the bottom of the handset and two touch buttons on either side of it. Samsung has decided to market this product with a single color range featuring the Mystic Blue exterior with a brushed Aluminum back.
Samsung Ativ S is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM. It runs on the brand new Windows Phone 8 and hence we are unable to report much about the operating system. Microsoft guarantees that it performs very well, but the operating system still hasn’t undergone any benchmarking tests, so we are not at liberty to predict how it would turn out to be. Hence we will primarily base our review on the specs of the handset. Following the usual aspects in a smartphone, Ativ S also has 8MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second with 1.9MP front facing camera for video conferencing. The network connectivity is defined by HSDPA and hopefully Samsung will have 4G versions of the handset in the market soon. Ativ S also has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and the ability to host a Wi-Fi hotspot to share your internet with your friends. Samsung also noticed that Ativ S supports sharing files through NFC which is a new feature introduced for Windows Phones. It comes with 16 and 32GB version with the support to expand the memory using microSD card up to 32GB. Samsung has been generous with Ativ S and included a beefy 2300mAh battery for prolonged usage times.
Samsung Galaxy S3 (Galaxy S III) Review
Galaxy S3 was one of the much anticipated smartphones of 2012. The S3 comes in two color combinations, Pebble Blue and Marble White. The cover is made with a glossy plastic that Samsung called as Hyperglaze, and I have to tell you, it feels so good in your hands. It retains a striking similarity to Galaxy Nexus rather than Galaxy S II having curvier edges and no hump at the back. It is 136.6 x 70.6mm in dimensions and has a thickness of 8.6mm with a weight of 133g. As you can see, Samsung has managed to produce this monster of a smartphone with a very reasonable size and weight. It comes with a 4.8 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen that features a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 306ppi. There’s apparently, no surprise here, but Samsung has incorporated PenTile matrix instead of using RGB matrix for their touchscreen. The image reproduction quality of the screen is beyond expectation, and the reflex of the screen is also rather low.
The power of any smartphone lies in its processor and Samsung Galaxy S3 comes with a 32nm 1.4GHz Quad Core Cortex A9 processor on top of Samsung Exynos chipset as predicted. It also accompanies this with 1GB of RAM and Android OS v4.0.4 IceCreamSandwich. Needless to say, this is a very solid combination of specs and tops the market in every aspect possible. A significant performance boost in the Graphics Processing Unit is also ensured by the Mali 400MP GPU. It comes with 16 / 32 and 64GB storage variations with the option of using a microSD card to expand the storage up to 64GB. This versatility has landed Samsung Galaxy S3 with a huge advantage because that was one of the prominent disadvantages in Galaxy Nexus.
As predicted, the network connectivity is reinforced with 4G LTE connectivity that varies regionally. Galaxy S3 also has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n for continuous connectivity and the built in DLNA ensure that you can share your multimedia contents in your big screen easily. S3 can also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot enabling you to share the monster 4G connection with your less fortunate friends. The camera seems to be the same available in Galaxy S 2, which is 8MP camera with autofocus and LED flash. Samsung has incorporated simultaneous HD video and image recording to this beast along with geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection and image & video stabilization. The video recording is at 1080p @ 30 frames per second while having the ability to video conference using the front facing camera of 1.9MP. Besides these conventional features, there are a whole lot of usability features.
Samsung is boasting a direct competitor of iOS Siri, the popular Personal Assistant that accepts voice commands named S Voice. The strength of S Voice is the ability to recognize languages other than English, like Italian, German, French and Korean. There are a lot of gestures that can land you in different applications, as well. For instance, if you tap and hold the screen while you rotate the phone, you can go directly in to the camera mode. S3 will also call whoever the contact you were browsing when you raise the handset to your ear, which is a good usability aspect. Samsung Smart Stay is designed to identify whether you’re using the phone and switch the screen off if you’re not. It uses the front camera with facial detection in order to achieve this task. Similarly, Smart Alert feature will make your smartphone vibrate when you pick it up if you have any missed calls of other notifications. Finally, Pop Up Play is a feature that would best explain the performance boost S3 has. Now you can work with any application you like and have a video playing on top of that application on its own window. The window size can be adjusted while the feature worked flawlessly with the tests we ran.
A smartphone of this caliber needs a lot of juice, and that is provided by the 2100mAh batter resting at the back of this handset. It also has a barometer and a TV out while you have to be careful about the SIM because S3 only supports the use of micro SIM cards.
A Brief Comparison Between Samsung Galaxy S3 and Ativ S
• Samsung Galaxy S3 is powered by 1.4GHz Cortex A9 Quad Core processor on top of Samsung Exynos 4412 Quad chipset with Mali 400MP GPU and 1GB of RAM while Samsung Ativ S is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM.
• Samsung Galaxy S3 runs on Android OS v4.0.4 ICS while Samsung Ativ S runs on Windows Phone 8.
• Samsung Galaxy S3 features a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 306ppi on a 4.8 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen while Samsung Ativ S features a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 306ppi on a 4.8 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen.
• Samsung Galaxy S3 is slightly smaller, thinner and lighter (136.6 x 70.6mm / 8.6mm / 133g) than Samsung Ativ S (137.2 x 70.5mm / 8.7mm / 135g).
• Samsung Galaxy S3 offers 4G LTE connectivity while Samsung Ativ S doesn’t offer that as of now.
• Samsung Galaxy S3 has advanced usability features that lack in Samsung Ativ S.
• Samsung Galaxy S3 has a 2100mAh battery while Samsung Ativ S has a 2300mAh battery.
Conclusion
Even, if a smartphone beats another fair and square, it can be neglected if your heart’s not on the winner. My point here is that, in a scenario like this when we compare two handsets with two different operating systems, the winner is decided by your preference. Hence in this case, my preference would be the Samsung Galaxy S3. I’d go for it because, as of now, it’s more established compared to Windows Phone 8 and has a wide application market that can provide me with any application I need. Samsung Galaxy S3 also has better hardware specs and would come in handy in the future when more demanding applications are released. What trips my balance towards the Galaxy S3 is the lack of hands on experience on Windows Phone 8. Hence my recommendation is to explore more about what Windows Phone 8 can do in a handset like Ativ S; check what Ativ S can do for you and whether you like the intuitive metro user interface better than the TouchWiz UI in Android, before you make the decision. It is a fact that you won’t regret buying either of these smartphones because they are truly state of the art.
Comparison of Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Ativ S Specification