It’s okay for Samsung to use plastic to build this phone, but less so to feign that it’s made of higher-grade materials.

Relying on the GS III’s automatic brightness is also problematic, as the phone tends to lean toward under-illuminating itself, making it usually a little too dark for comfortable use.

This is by no means my final word on the phone, which has no U.S. release date apart from "summer" and few details on what might change, apart from LTE readiness, when it does come to our shores.

There are plenty of good Android phones on Verizon, but the Galaxy S III might be the best one yet.

Both will handle any Android game you throw at them, and there are no guarantees that the the GS III’s extra power will result in a tangible real world advantage before it comes time for you to upgrade your phone again.

HTC's One S is a very good phone, but the Galaxy S III has a bigger display, faster performance, and superior software tweaks.

As with Android Beam, you won't have to do more than press the backs of the phones together, confirm the beam, and pull the phones apart.

That adds to the face unlocking option that’s native to Android 4.0 in being frustratingly unwieldy and planted firmly within gimmick territory — more than once I was stuck repeating "hello" without any recognition from the phone.

An Android Ice Cream Sandwich phone through and through, the S3 is fully loaded with all the Google goodies, and then some.

A dual-band CDMA phone (800/1,900MHz), the GS3 also supports LTE.

A dual-band CDMA phone (800/1,900MHz), the GS3 also supports LTE, but not while roaming.

I used the Speedtest.net diagnostic app to test Sprint's speeds, which are 3G for this phone until the Now Network launches its first LTE market.

Samsung has used some excellent 8-megapixel cameras in the Samsung Galaxy S II phones, and I'm happy to report that this 8-megapixel camera lens, with backlit sensor and LED flash, is worthy of a flagship phone.

Image quality on this phone is simply excellent.

The results were a toss-up; no one phone camera routinely outperformed the others on close-ups, fully blown-up images, color temperature, and focus, but I was able to take excellent shots with all three.