With the recent releases from Samsung of both the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Nexus, many are wondering which of the two Android handsets they should go for. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is the current flagship phone, whereas the Nexus was built with Google as overseer and is the third in their Nexus line. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has Android UI Touchwiz 4.0 on top of Ice Cream Sandwich while the Samsung Galaxy Nexus runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Now the hardware.
Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Galaxy Nexus
In terms of display, both have a Super AMOLED HD touchscreen displays with 710 x 1280p but the S3 has a bigger 4.8 inch display versus the Nexus 4.65 inches. However the Nexus does pack 10ppi more than the S3, at 316ppi.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 has a quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 4412 Cortex A9 processor, 1GB RAM and a Mali 400 graphical processor. The Nexus has a dual core 1.2 GHz TI OMAP 4460 Cortex A9 processor, so the S3 is better here with newer architecture and a faster clocked processor.
Both devices are almost similar in size, with the Samsung Galaxy S3 being 81.88 cubic cms and 133g to 82.93 and 135g on the Nexus, however the S3 looks more slender than the Nexus partly because it is lighter.
Despite rumors prior to the Samsung Galaxy S3 release of the device featuring a 12MP rear-facing camera, it is actual 8MP which isn’t any more than its predecessor the S2, however it is still higher than the Galaxy Nexus which just has a 5MP rear-facing camera. The front-facing camera on the S3 is also better at 1.9MP to the Nexus’ 1.3MP.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 has an impressive 2100 mAh battery, far superior to 1750mAh on the Nexus, and can offer 620 minutes of talk time to 500 minutes on the Nexus, meaning higher levels of efficiency.
Connectivity on both devices are good, both have NFC, Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct, though the S3 has the additions of Bluetooth 4.0 and GLONASS.
From looking at the features and specs on each device you can see that the Samsung Galaxy S3 does just tip the balance and lives up the hype. To date, over 10 million Samsung Galaxy S3 units have been sold, far outbeating the Galaxy Nexus which had a big headstart. If you’re after the best smartphone on the market, it is the Galaxy S3. However if faster and guaranteed Android updates is what you want (and that only) then the the Galaxy Nexus is the only option for you.
