Samsung Galaxy S III (16GB - pebble blue, T-Mobile)

Pros: * Big 4.8" 720p screen
* Smooth curves make for a comfortable feel
* 2GB of RAM = instant reload times
* Lightning fast
* Minimal Touchwiz skin
* Priced lower than other flagship phones
* Great camera!
* Lots of internal memory and up to 64GB SD card

Cons: * Glossy back cover is a fingerprint magnet

Summary: I've owned a lot of smart phones over the years, including Blackberries and an iPhone, but I've never owned one that effortlessly combined a beautiful aesthetic, a natural, comfortable feel, plenty of power, light weight and a responsive, balanced operating system in such a harmonious way as the Samsung Galaxy S3 does.

I love a big screen, but it's important to put that screen in a package that isn't too big, and the S3 pulls that off. I also like a light phone, but I don't want it to feel cheap. The S3 finds that balance between light and solid that both Motorola and HTC consistently miss with their relatively heavy phones.

Performance is critical for any phone, and with a dual-core 1.5Ghz S4 processor and enough RAM to keep all of your recent apps in memory, there's little that can slow the S3 down. This is the first 2GB RAM phone I've owned, and I am now a believer that ever phone should have this much.

I've never cared much for phone cameras, but with the S3's instant response and excellent quality pictures, that is changing. With burst mode, I can just point the camera in the right direction and get a better picture than I normally would if I took lots of time. Really smart software.

I would like nothing more than a vanilla Android experience, but if you have to have a skin on your phone, a minimal one is best. This version of Touchwiz is less intrusive than previous versions, or than Blur or Sense. I'm glad to see Samsung is finally learning to have a light touch.

Some of the new NFC features are interesting and even useful. I think we've got a long way to go before we've figured out all of the cool things we can do with NFC, but Samsung is the first to make a serious effort out of it.

I'm not a big fan of S-Voice, but then I'm not a big fan of Siri. The new voice assistant introduced in Jelly Bean puts both of them to shame, and I look forward to that upgrade. For now, I won't count S-Voice against Samsung because it is easily ignored.

The S3 is not a perfect phone, but it's as close to that as I've ever seen and closer than the others by a significant margin. I recommend this phone to anyone who is looking for a great smart phone. You won't be disappointed.