I had a chance to use the S3 at one of the Reliance Digital outlets. Can't really tell how glad I am that I did stick to my note. The phone is small. Too small in comparison. The aspect ratio is making up for all the real estate loss, even after being odd 4.8 incher. But more than the screen size, I was pissed off seeing the build quality of the flagship model from the house of Samsung. I thought that NOTE was shabbily built but this one trounces the NOTE. Having HTX OneX in one hand and the S3 in another, the difference was huge. A big big let down here.
Talking about the smoothness, well let me be honest and unbiased here. I didn't find anything out of the world. It isn't, really isn't smoother than the NOTE (but I am on launcher pro and I admit that the stock homescreens lag on the NOTE as well). The HTC oneX was better. The transition between the homescreens are jittery at best.
I spent good 20 minutes with the device keeping in perspective the NOTE that I had in my pocket. I honestly didn't feel that the S3 is even a step up (let alone calling a huge step up) from the NOTE. The HTC OneX sure is a step up, at least in the build quality and the overall feel of the device but S3, I'd say its all hype. Not counting the jazzy features like multishot camera clicks, I didn't find any reasonable value addition that Samsung did, that could convince me about the high premium this device is commanding.
I so wanted to sell my NOTE and get the S3 (disliked HOX for its shoddy failure rates) and those 20 minutes with the device made everything clear for me.
Made for humans. Yeah Sure. But only for humans who have lot of money to spare. I for one am not the one. I've my eyes set on the NOTE-2 release now.