Currently one of the hottest phones on the market is the Galaxy S3 from Samsung. But owners of the predecessor, the S2 may be wondering if it is worth upgrading to. What if any improvement does the big brother come with?
Samsung Galaxy S3 vs S2: Why you can wait
In terms of weight the S3 is slightly heavier weighing in at 133g and being 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm. the S2 on the other hand is more pocketablet at 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm and weighs in at a lighter 116g. The colour options are black, white (and even pink in some markets) for the S2, while the S3 is offered in pebble blue and marble white.
The bigger display is seen on the S3 as it is 4.8 inch in comparison to the 4.3 inch of the S II and both displays are Super AMOLED with Gorilla Glass, with the exception of the S3 screen having Gorilla Glass 2. However this may not be a big advantage as when drop tests were performed the display of the S3 shattered more easily than that of the iPhone 4S. The resolution of the Samsung Galaxy S3 is much better at 1280 x 720 while on the S2 this is 800 x 480.
Both phones have an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus and a resolution of 3264 x 2488. However the camera on the Samsung Galaxy S3 has burst mode and can also take video and photos at the same time.
The processor of the Samsung Galaxy S3 in the US is a 1.5GHz dual core and runs Android 4.0, the S2 comes with Android 2.3.4 with the 4.0 update coming shortly, and has a 1.2GHz dual core cortex processor.
Storage wise the S2 is available in 32GB with SD storage up to another 32GB while the Samsung Galaxy S3 is offered in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB with SD card storage up to another 64GB. However you might find that 64GG with added microSD support is more than what the average user would need.
The battery on the S3 is 2100mAh giving around 12 hours of talking and this is a boost up of 3 hours over the battery in the S2.
The S III has features such as S Voice, Smart Stay and Smart Call, however the S2 might get a couple new features too with the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update.
If you are a die-hard tech fan then of course you may want the latest handset from Samsung. On the other hand you could want to wait with your S2 until the S4 arrives as this isn’t as huge of an upgrade to S2 owners who bought theirs less than a year ago. And if that seems too long, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is also rumors to launch sometime this year with shared architectuee from the S3 but added Note features which will make it very different than the S2.
