Samsung Galaxy S III

The S3 has gone big on innovation, with lots of new features the speculation hadn’t dreamed of. But the first thing you notice is the size. Samsung has shown it can make a success of big screens with the 5.3in display on the Samsung Galaxy Note.
The S3 has a 4.8in display and it's certainly big. It’s a slim phone from front to back so it’s more manageable than you might think, but even so.

Actually, what helps more in terms of comfort is the gloss finish. It’s like a smooth, flat worry stone that you can roll seamlessly through your fingers. A matte finish wouldn’t have felt as good.
Though some will feel that the glossy coat looks a bit, well, plasticky. But it feels appealingly shiny and reassuringly solid despite a removable battery.

Where rivals like the Nokia Lumia 900 and HTC One X have maximised battery life by sealing it inside, and thus created a flex-free handset, the S3 is pleasingly non-creaky, no matter how you hold it.
Sometimes a new phone is only a gentle upgrade over the last model, but the S3 is streets ahead of the S2. It’s not quite as slim, though at 8.6mm it’s just a tenth of a millimetre fatter and it lacks the earlier phone’s bulge.The Galaxy S III uses the very latest version of Android, 4.0.3, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. This is far and away the best version of Google’s operating system, with a cleaner look than before.

Ice Cream Sandwich lets you put these buttons as virtual icons onscreen, like on the Galaxy Nexus. Here there’s a physical home button, an elongated strip in the centre of the phone’s face at the bottom.
Either side are two virtual capacitive buttons. Samsung has rejected the Recent Apps button in favour of Back and Menu options.
Much better. And if you need it, a long press on the home button brings up the Recent Apps screen.

The latest OS doesn’t just offer yet another tempting-sounding treat to get our mouths watering.
Samsung takes this one big step further with the inclusion of S Beam which adds WiFi Direct to the wireless transfer connection so you can beam video files quickly between S3s.

You can throw content from the phone to a suitably equipped TV if you find the 4.8in display doesn’t do your movies justice while a feature called Smart Alert makes sure you know about missed calls or messages by gently vibrating or whistling a merry tune.Now the competition has caught up and the S3 was rumoured to be getting a 12 megapixel camera, but instead it's got the same snapper as the S2.
Still, it’s a decent sensor which delivers strong results and you can also capture full HD 1080p video.
Samsung Galaxy S3 price: £499

Skype Logitech webcam

Logitech has launched a new high-definition camera intended to be placed on top of your big-screen television instead to be on your computer display. The TV Cam HD is the company’s first self-contained webcam and Skype client, allowing wide-angle, 720p Skype video calls on your HDTV through Wi-Fi or Ethernet, without the need for a computer or a companion device like their failed Revue Google TV box.
The webcam features a Carl Zeiss wide-angle lens, allowing it to capture multiple people on the picture, and four microphones to reduce external noise. Besides Wi-Fi and Ethernet, there’s an HDMI-out port to hook up your TV (or anything with HDMI-in) and a power jack for the supplied power adapter.

The TV Cam HD runs a customized version of Skype and comes with a remote for controlling the software, zooming images in and out, and using the digital pan and tilt functions. The built-in ringer lets you know if someone’s calling, whether your TV is on or off, and if nobody answers there’s voicemail.
The TV Cam HD will become available this month in the U.S. for $200 and then next in Europe.
This isn't the first time Logitech attempts to bring video chat to HDTVs. The $60 Logitech TV Cam is aimed at the same market but requires a Skype-compatible HDTV or a companion device like the Logitech Revue Google TV that supports the camera. Several HDTVs from Panasonic, LG, Samsung, and other manufacturers have Skype support built-in but require a separate webcam accessory.

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