10 Reasons I won't be Buying the Samsung Galaxy S 3

Samsung's flagship phone had high expectations before its announcement.  It's still a top phone but I won't be buying it.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S II (SGS2) updated to Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) and the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S III (SGS3) brings some significant upgrades like:

• Impressive graphics and CPU benchmarks
• Bigger display with denser pixel (PPI)
• Lighter TouchWiz UI
• Suite of Samsung software: S-beam, S-voice
• Bigger battery and better battery life
• 8MP camera with backside illumination, zero-lag, and HDR support
• Barometer sensor
• NFC
• Multiple built-in memory: 16MB, 32MB, or 64MB with support for SDXC

Unfortunately, some of the rumored features like 12MP, dedicated camera button, and 2GB of RAM didn't make it into the final product.
From the front, the SGS3 looks a lot like the Galaxy Nexus except for the added physical home key and captive back and menu keys.

The Samsung Galaxy S III (center) compared to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (left) and Samsung Galaxy S II (right)

Source: GSMArena

So here is the list you've been waiting for, the 10 reasons I won't be buying a Samsung Galaxy S 3:

1. Google's next version of Android Jellybean (JB) is coming out later this year and my experience with the ICS upgrade for SGS2 means a JB update for SGS3 probably won't come out until well into 2013 and most features in JB will be covered up by Samsung's TouchWiz UI.
2. Very few apps or games will take advantage of quad-core or the added performance.  Also important to note is Cortex A15 will be coming out soon and a dual-core A15 solution has been benchmarked to easily beat current quad-core A9 solutions like the SGS3.
3. Same amount of RAM: 1GB - but dualcore versions have been found with 2GB
4. I already have a 32GB microSD with the built-in 16GB which I've only used 25% so I won't need more. The SGS2 supports the SanDisk 64GB SDXC anyways.
5. I don't need NFC yet since very few apps need it and few merchants in the US and Canada support it
6. I don't need any of the Samsung software suite since S-Beam which will only be Samsung devices and I can easily send things via Bluetooth.  Their software will likely get ported to SGS2 anyways like S-voice.
7. If I was sick of TouchWiz I would've loaded another ROM on my phone like CyanogenMod 9 so a lighter TouchWiz doesn't serve me any good.
8. 8MP camera quality in daylight is, to me, same as SGS2 and night photos are good enough on the SGS2 (Mobile-review).
9. No 3rd party apps will take advantage of the barometer since no other phone has it.
10. Pentile Display - I'm just kidding here. In seriousness, the higher PPI should compensate for it so you won't notice the Pentile layout unless you're reading text like e-mails.  The SGS2's PPI is good enough for me and I have a 10 inch iPad if I wanted a bigger screen.

If I didn't have the SGS2, I would definitely pick up the SGS3 instead.  You get everything in the SGS2 with a few more goodies for about $170 more (based on today's Expansys-USA prices).  The SGS3 is a great phone that will likely hold the crown as king of Android phones for the rest of 2012 but isn't quite the big improvement the SGS2 was over its predecessor.  If I had a Galaxy Nexus, I wouldn't pick up the SGS3 for more or less the same reasons.