Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Huawei Ascend D Quad

It's a quad core duel this time as Samsung's Galaxy S3 takes on the Huawei Ascend D Quad

Form
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 136.6x70.6x8.6mm, 133g
Huawei Ascend D Quad - 129x64x8.9mm, 130g
The Samsung Galaxy S3 has fallen in-line with current trends for a more curved and rounded-off form factor and Samsung has said the design was inspired by pebbles.
This goes along similar lines as the Galaxy Nexus and HTC's One S, but where these devices are very well executed the Galaxy S3 leaves something to be desired.
The proportions and lines aren't as flattering as those aforementioned handsets but, more importantly, Samsung has neglected the build quality more here than on any previous Galaxy handset with some appallingly tacky plastic.
The Huawei Ascend D Quad is also slightly rounded off, though, not as much as the Galaxy S3. Overall the form factor is somewhat reminiscent of the Galaxy S2 but with more pronounced curvature and softening of the corners and edges.
This isn't a look which we are particularly attracted to but it's not exactly a turn-off either. It looks okay.
We can't vouch for the build quality in terms of hands-on, but from pictures we've seen the body shell has a certain sheen to it which doesn't bode well.
It wouldn't be at all surprising if the materials used here are a little lacklustre but whether they're as bad as the Galaxy S3 or not is an unknown factor.
We think the Huawei Ascend D Quad comes out looking smarter here - frankly, we are hugely disappointed with the Galaxy S3's build and aesthetics and so far it's lost out to pretty much everything in this department.

Winner - Huawei Ascend D Quad


Display
Samsung's Galaxy S3 has a massive 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD capacitive multi-touch display with a 1280x720 pixel resolution. This gives a pixel density of 306 pixels-per-inch (ppi) for some crystal clear visuals with plenty of brightness alongside great colours, contrast and true blacks.
Huawei has really pushed the boat out too, however, with its 4.5-inch IPS + LCD capacitive multi-touch screen. It boasts the same resolution as its rival and a higher pixel density of 326ppi. Brightness, clarity and colours should be very good here.
Although the pixel density is higher it's not by so much that many users will really notice. If you've got perfect vision maybe you'll pick up the difference in pixels-per-inch but otherwise they're on a similar level.

Winner - Draw
Storage
Huawei's D Quad has 8GB of internal storage and 1GB of RAM for the processor to chew on. Fortunately, there's additional space in the form of a microSD slot which supports cards up to 32GB.
The Galaxy S3 is more generously kitted out with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and each has 1GB of RAM and micro SD support for 32GB cards.
Samsung wins this one with the sheer amount of space availability, plus the luxury of choice.

Winner - Samsung Galaxy S3


Processor
With the Galaxy S3 we're dealing with Samsung's first quad core smartphone, but despite the additional two cores it still runs on ARM's Cortex-A9 architecture.
The chipset has been upgraded, though, and the Galaxy S3 uses Samsung's latest Exynos 4212 chipset clocked at 1.4GHz with a Mali-400MP graphics processing unit. From what we've seen of the device so far performance is lightning quick, as you might expect.
Some early murmurings about benchmarks suggest its quicker than pretty much anything else on the market
The Ascend D Quad is also on the quad core bandwagon but this time Huawei has engineered its own chipset, dubbed the K3V2, which is clocked at 1.2GHz (there's also the D Quad XL, clocked at 1.5GHz but otherwise identical).
Reports indicate this is an extremely fast setup, quicker than Nvidia's Tegra 3 and possibly even Qualcomm's S4 Snapdragon Krait.
We think these two are more or less evenly matched and should deliver flawless performance. There is the possibility that a stodgy overlay from Huawei could slow things down but for now we've no reason to believe this is actually the case.

Winner - Draw



Operating System
Both devices run the latest version of Google's Android platform, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, which brings the system right up-to-date with better all-round performance and stability along with a revamped and easier to use menu layout.
Another change we're particularly fond of is that it brings across the fast app-switcher from the 3.2 Honeycomb tablet build, but it's been tweaked to make it even more useful.
Not only can you flick through preview windows of currently open apps but you can now swipe them off the screen to close. It's much handier than going into the Manage Applications menu and disabling them manually.
The Galaxy S3 has a few additional features unique to the device. There's ‘Smart Stay' which uses the front-facing camera to track your eye movement. This means that as long as you're looking at the screen it won't power off and go dark.
‘Pop-up Play' allows you to play video files in an overlay window which you can move about the screen and means you can continue viewing a web page and perform other tasks while the video plays.
Unfortunately, this doesn't extend to streamed videos or Youtube content - it will only work with videos stored on the device or an SD card. Although this is a nice feature it's easily replicable on any other Android phone via third-party apps.
We can't help but shake the feeling that Samsung's additions are novelties, some are useful, but we can live without them just as easily. Apart from that these handsets are on an equal footing.

Winner - Draw


Camera
There are a lot of similarities between Samsung's Galaxy S3 camera setup and those of HTC's One X and One S. For starters it uses an 8-megapixel back-illuminated sensor with a 3264x2448 pixel resolution, but it also has the same simultaneous 1080p video and still image capture and a rapid multi-shot capability with a ‘best shot' picker.
Other features include an LED flash, video stabilisation, image stablisiation, geo-tagging, touch focus, autofocus, face and smile detection, HDR, panoramic mode, ISO control, white balance and exposure control. The front-facing 2-megapixel secondary camera captures video at 720p and supports video calling.
Huawei's Ascend D Quad also has an 8-megapixel BSI primary with the same 3264x2448 pixel resolution. It features autofocus, geo-tagging, a dual LED flash and 1080p video capture, while a 1.3-megapixel secondary with 720p video capture and video call support.
Both cameras should capture great pictures and video, but Samsung's Galaxy S3 has a more comprehensive features line-up.

Winner - Samsung Galaxy S3


Final Thoughts
In some of the most crucial areas these phones are at a stalemate, but it's the good kind of stalemate because they're both doing very well in these categories. Processing power, display quality and the operating system are all equally good across both devices and to a very high standard at that.
The Galaxy S3 comes out ahead on storage and while the Huawei's camera is still good, Samsung has gone the extra mile here in terms of added features.
However, on design and build quality neither handset is doing particularly well. We think Huawei's D Quad may have a slight advantage here due to its more appealing shape.

Posted in: Comparisons,Huawei,Huawei Ascend D Quad,Mobiles,Samsung,Samsung Galaxy S III