Samsung Galaxy S III Jelly Bean preview: First look

Synthetic benchmarks

The raw performance under Jelly Bean is quite similar to what we saw when ICS was in charge, although there are minor differences which are still worth mentioning.

First - SunSpider scored higher which means the JavaScript performance has been improved a bit. On the other hand, the BrowserMark score (JavaScript, HTML5) came out a bit lower, but nothing to hurt the end-user experience.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Galaxy S III Android 4.0.4 ICS
  1447
• Galaxy S III Android 4.1 JB
  1179

BrowserMark

Higher is better

• Galaxy S III Android 4.0.4 ICS
  169, 811
• Galaxy S III Android 4.1 JB
  157, 176

The processor benchmark we ran - BenchmarkPi and Linpack - performed the same as they did on the ICS-running Galaxy S III.

Linpack

Higher is better

• Galaxy S III Android 4.0.4 ICS
  177.1
• Galaxy S III Android 4.1 JB
  190.0

BenchmarkPi

Lower is better

• Galaxy S III Android 4.0.4 ICS
  344
• Galaxy S III Android 4.1 JB
  343

Finally, the graphics benchmarks results came a little lower than before, but that's because Jelly Bean's Project Butter is eating more GPU power. You can't have it all, we guess, but there's still plenty of graphics power remaining for you to use.

NenaMark 2

Higher is better

• Galaxy S III Android 4.0.4 ICS
  58.8
• Galaxy S III Android 4.1 JB
  58.5

GLBenchmark Egypt 720p offscreen

Higher is better

• Galaxy S III Android 4.0.4 ICS
  103
• Galaxy S III Android 4.1 JB
  99

Google Now is your new best friend

Google Now is perhaps the most notable new feature that the Jelly Bean update brings. In the simplest of terms, it is Android's version of Siri for iOS, but much more integrated into the operating system. Google Now is way quicker than its competitor at recognizing and answering your queries and while its functionality still leaves something to be desired, it seems like a step in the right direction.

Google Now in action

Besides being able to recognize voice commands, Google Now will learn from your usage patterns, and display relevant information. For example, if you search for a particular sports team frequently, Google Now will display information for upcoming games you might want to watch.

Google Now

The service interacts with you by generating cards which are displayed on your screen and give you a short overview of information it believes is relevant to you. Going to work in the morning? Google Now knows this and lets you know there's a big traffic jam on your usual way to the office, and will offer you an alternate route. This extends to a multitude of other areas, including weather, traffic, public transit stations, and nearby points of interest.

Check out its promo video:

Google Now on the Galaxy S III gets activated with a press-and-hold of the menu button. You can either type or talk to it and the app will give you one of its aforementioned info cards (if available) and read you its contents aloud (you can disable this from the app settings). If there's no card to help with the answer to your question Google Now will simply initiate a Google Search instead.

Google Now