Samsung Galaxy S III

The Samsung Galaxy S3 comes fully loaded with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4G LTE/HSPA+ 42 capability, a zippy dual-core processor, and a strong 8-megapixel camera. S Beam is an excellent software enhancement, and the handset's price is right.

It won't wow you with neon colors or evocative, industrial design; it doesn't have the sharpest screen on the market; and its body isn't fashioned from ceramic, glass, or micro-arc oxidized aluminum. That said, the Galaxy S3 is about the nicest plastic phone I've ever seen. Likely tired of hearing complaints about how cheap-feeling Samsung phones can be, the company decided to focus instead on making the contours more premium -- without giving up its light, inexpensive, and shatterproof material of choice.

The GS III loses out to the One X on a few scores but beats it on others. It does particularly well on the SunSpider score, which reflects web-browsing performance: it's on a par with the One X here, and well beyond the latest Apple A5-based devices –- for instance, the new iPad only scores 2,011ms. If we look at Tegra 3 devices, like the global version of HTC One X, which isn't listed on the table above, we see a similar picture of the GS III winning on some and losing on a couple (namely CF-Bench and Quadrant). Overall, we'd have to call it a draw between the GS III and either variant of the HTC One X, at least on the basis of these specific tests.