The Samsung Galaxy S III: AndroidNZ goes hands-on, brings you our thoughts and exclusive details

One can almost sense the near-palpable nervousness of the
One X capturing this shot... I think it came over all Mr Blurrycam
because it was shaking with fear (or maybe that was my excitement)

Something great happened to me today; I got the rather unexpected joy of being able to play with the Samsung Galaxy S III. The pieces fell together quite unexpectedly yesterday, when a nameless benefactor temporarily came into possession of an S3, and was kind enough to give it up for a couple of hours today (I don't think I could have been so generous, I would have been more in the "from my cold dead hands" camp I think).

Anyways, what follows is an account of my brief two hour experience with the S3, and some of my thoughts and early impressions. I unearthed a few things that nobody else has covered in relation to the S3, so I hope you'll enjoy it (you didn't think exFAT support was all I had for you, did ya?).

Catch you after the break.

Samsung Galaxy S3: User manual causes exFAT consternation, we have an update!

The recent release of the User Manual for the S3 has caused a bit of a stir for those looking forward to the exFAT support we reported is native to the S3. It states there is support only for Fat32 formatted cards up to a maximum size of 32GB, which is obviously counter to what our research found, and even contradicts Samsung's own official launch announcement where they specifically mention support for cards up to 64GB in size.

If the presence of an official Samsung document excluding exFAT support has set your teeth on edge, we have some good news.

You see, I'm in touch via Twitter with @Amon_Ra - known Android developer and all around good guy (follow him now!), and he has actually had an S3 in his possession since last week for testing
purposes. I asked him to test exFAT support for me, and this was his reply:

@NZtechfreak I formatted an 8Gb microsd to exFAT using Windows 7. It works without issues in the S3.

So there you have it, actual user confirmation that exFAT works natively on the S3. You can relax now on that count. Now all you have to worry about is the million other questions you have about the S3, and the interminable wait for it's release...

Samsung Galaxy S3, secrets revealed: Battery life, exFAT, Apt-X (bonus scandal: the iPad2 buyers lottery)

If you read our 'reactions to the S III' piece you will have seen us reference the Voodoo Report-generated hardware analysis from Supercurio, in particular the use of the excellent Wolfson DAC (digital to analog converter; the phones sound card if you will, which all but assures class-leading audio quality in the Android phone realm). Well, we've been poring over that report, and also reading a few other things around the net that point to some extremely interesting and unheralded aspects of the S III.

Read on after the break as we join a few important dots...

[UPDATE] Don't forget to check out our follow up piece with even more fresh features of the Galaxy S III!