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Video Playback
The Samsung Galaxy S III’s video player handled most files I had on hand with relative ease and I didn’t notice any slowdowns. A list of working files included high definition .mkv and .mp4 files, however it would not play a 1080p H.264 .mov file or a 40 Mb/s .mkv file. If you have a lot of high quality files you’re better off using something like MX Player instead.
A neat addition to the software is the live previews that can be seen under the thumbnail view or under the chapter preview option within a video. Users can also find their desired video through the folder schemes of the phone’s storage.
In addition to this, Samsung has what they call pop-up play. While playing a video normally with one tap of a button the video reduces in size and overlays whatever is on the screen behind it. You can move it around as you please but cannot change its size. Android runs completely normally behind this but I see limited usage possibilities of this. Perhaps if they allowed its size to be modified and added pause/play buttons it would be useful.
Music Application
Samsung’s bundled music application has a music square function that can scan the music library and sort applications into different categories. Sliding over different parts of the square will result in different songs being selecting depending upon excitement, passion, joyful and calming ratings. I thought this was pretty cool and found it to be rather accurate.
Users are able to swipe the album art to skip through songs. Folder view is also supported for those people like me who refuse to rely solely upon file tags. Streaming music from nearby devices worked well but all songs are thrown into one endless list rather than being categorised.
Audio Quality
The Galaxy S III has a Wolfson DAC which results in better audio quality without the need for gimmicky audio equalisers like Beats Audio. Personally, I could barely notice the premium audio experience on the S III when compared to the One X, but admittedly I am no audiophile.
Every audio engineer you meet will probably tell you that if you want the best audio experience then you should buy the Galaxy S III, however most people are not going to notice the difference.
Furthermore, the external speaker is about the same quality as the HTC One X’s but is considerably louder. However, it is much easier to muffle on the Galaxy.
