galaxy s3

If you want fast 4G, move to Australia.

After looking over recent LTE test results from San Francisco and New York where downloads speeds topped out at 23.6Mbps, I feel an uncontrollable urge to gloat. Our 4G speeds in Australia are up to four times faster, and here's why.

Signal strengths (and weaknesses) First, there are technological differences between the 4G networks in Australia and similar networks in the United States. Significantly, they operate on higher frequencies, with both Tesltra and Optus (two of our biggest carriers) repurposing (mostly) unused 1,800MHz spectrum to deliver 4G services, while … Read more

Smartphone buyers who think the Galaxy S3 is too big could see a smaller version launch as early as next week.

An invite sent out by Samsung for an October 11 launch event touts a smaller product on the horizon with the headline "The size may be small" and the subheading "and so small can be big," according to Google Translate. The text from Samsung's German branch is also translated as "that's how big small can be," says TechRadar. However you translate it, Samsung is teasing a big announcement about a small … Read more

Samsung's Galaxy S3 isn't being thwarted by little things like the iPhone 5 or jury verdicts.

Since August 1, sales of the S3 have seen average weekly growth of 9 percent, following by big spikes after the Apple lawsuit verdict and the iPhone 5 announcement, according to mobile-app analytics firm Localytics.

Sales of new S3 phones jumped 16 percent from August 21 to August 27. On August 24, a jury in California found Samsung guilty of patent infringement, awarding Apple more than $1 billion in damages.

The focus on Samsung and the notion that its phones were similar … Read more

Everyone else is excited about this being the episode where we torture test the iPhone 5 -- and believe me, I get that, it's pretty exciting. And it was a pretty dramatic test, to be sure, I think you'll be surprised at the combination of tough and not tough displayed by that phone.

But for me, this episode is all about the America's Cup piece! That's just selfish, though; it's because I had such a great time riding on that catamaran -- and I do think the broadcasting tech is fascinating. America's Cup racing … Read more

Samsung Galaxy S3 owners are subject to a vulnerability that can actually be fixed with an over-the-air update.

Samsung today said that users can install a security update over the air that will safeguard them from a vulnerability that could allow someone to remotely delete all of their personal data from the handset.

Security researcher Ravi Borgaonkar discovered the flaw and demonstrated it last week at a security conference in Argentina. The flaw lies in the way Samsung's TouchWiz UI handles unstructured supplementary service data codes, which are allowed to execute commands on the device's keypad. Most software … Read more

Owners of the Samsung Galaxy S2 and S3 may be vulnerable to a flaw that could allow their personal data to be deleted from their device, a security researcher has discovered.

The malicious code, which is now circulating on the Internet, could trigger a factory reset of the popular handsets, according to Ravi Borgaonkar, a researcher in the Security in Communications department at Technical University Berlin, who demonstrated the vulnerability at the Ekoparty security conference in Argentina last week (see video below).

The flaw lies in the way Samsung's TouchWiz UI interacts with unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) codes, … Read more

Apple didn't do much to the iPhone's camera from the 4S to the 5. Then again, it didn't really have to.

The iPhone 4S has one of the best cameras on a smartphone, and with some improved processing and other enhancements, the iPhone 5 does now, too. But it's not the only mobile device with a good camera built in, with the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S3 offering up some strong competition.

All three devices use an 8-megapixel backside-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor. Basically, the benefit of BSI CMOS sensors over regular CMOS sensors is … Read more

Smartphone sadism continues in this face-off video between the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 from gadget warranty outfit SquareTrade.

After being dropped, drowned, and pounded with various household objects, the lightweight, metal-backed iPhone 5 seems to hold up much better overall than its Android arch-nemesis, but the demonstration is far from scientific. The Galaxy S3 took a serious face shot to its glass screen in the drop test, whereas the iPhone 5 lucked out and bounced off its side edge. … Read more

Samsung is slowly rolling out a software update for the Galaxy S3.

Forum posters over at XDA Developers reported today they've started receiving an update to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). Based on the posts, it appears that the update is slowly making its way across Europe.

If Jelly Bean is, in fact, coming to the Galaxy S3, it's a bit ahead of schedule. Earlier this month, Samsung confirmed to CNET UK that the device would get Jelly Bean as early as October. The company didn't say when the software might be rolled out to U.S.… Read more