Samsung Galaxy S3 review updated after long-term testing

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is undoubtedly the biggest Android blower of the year -- it's big in dimensions, power and price tag.

It's very big in the popularity stakes too -- more popular than even Samsung had banked on. Earlier this week, the South Korean giant revealed it's shifted a whopping 10 million S3 smart phones since the quad-core Ice Cream Sandwich-slathered behemoth hit shelves in May -- flogging all those phones faster than originally expected.

If you're eyeing up the S3 and contemplating whether it's worth dropping half a grand on its shiny surfaces, you'll be delighted to learn I've updated the CNET UK review -- with additional testing, observations based on using the phone for longer and screenshots galore. Follow this link to read the extensively updated Samsung Galaxy S3 review.

As well as giving you a tour of the key Samsung apps on the S3 -- such as the nifty video multi-tasking feature Pop up Play, Samsung's somewhat hard-of-hearing voice assistant S Voice, and multi-device content sharing software AllShare Play -- I've been road testing the S3's NFC capability.

To really explore what NFC has to offer, I'm using a trial S3 supplied by Visa, which includes an NFC SIM and a Visa payment app. That's all the components required to allow me to swipe to pay for my lunch in any shop that supports contactless payments and sells sandwiches.

If you already own an S3, you won't yet be able to use it to pay for stuff with a swipe -- unless you're one of the Olympic athletes kitted out with a fully-loaded S3 -- because UK banks haven't launched commercial payment apps yet. But hopefully it shouldn't be too long before you too can be swiping to pay.

A Visa spokesman I talked to last month hinted that a UK bank would be launching a contactless payment app around the time of the Olympics -- so whichever bank it is had better get a move on.

Are you contemplating buying an S3? Or perhaps you've bagged one already? Let me know what you like -- and what you don't like -- about the phone in the comments below. Or post a mini review over on our Facebook page.

Editor's note: Visa has loaned Natasha Lomas an S3 and provided credit in the payment app to be used at contactless tills, but the company had no input into the content of this article.