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Battery life
A smartphone is only as good as its weakest elements. It would be impossible to have an amazing phone with only enough power in the battery to power it for ten minutes. Take a look at TechRadar's HTC One review, for instance, with it achieving the five star status only after getting an update to look at battery problems.
Every user will find different battery drain on the Samsung Galaxy Ace 3, but we feel that the 1800mAh is sufficient for most people. We found that during tests, the Ace 3 lasted all day with a little left over.
Battery life is an area that Samsung has really given some thought to. The quick settings that sit in the notifications bar have been around for as long as we can remember. They really help save battery life, giving you the ability to turn off battery draining services such as Wi-Fi and GPS.
Disappointingly, there is no auto-brightness feature on the Galaxy Ace 3, as this is a feature that helps to preserve battery life.
To test the Galaxy Ace 3, I put it through a standard day, taking it off charge at 8am, using it to send lots of Facebook, email and SMS messages, as well as taking the odd photograph. At the end of that, it had a pleasing 20% battery left.
Connectivity
When it comes to connectivity, modern smartphones are getting more and more connected. Even entry-level devices come with NFC. Being a mid-range phone, the Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 includes a lot of options.
Wi-Fi, GPS, GLONASS, Bluetooth, NFC, 4G and DLNA are all built in, although Samsung is saving the Infra Red blasters for the more expensive flagships.
It comes with 4G on board, which shows just how far the roll-out has come in the UK. Fast mobile Internet technology is slowly making its way down to cheaper devices, helping to boost users and push the technology further.
Wi-Fi is supported to b/g/n standards (as well as Wi-Fi Direct on board), with Bluetooth supported to 4.0 standard, with A2DP support also available. DLNA streaming is also built in to the Galaxy Ace 3.
Connection to the PC is done via a microUSB port, which also doubles itself up as the charging point, as it always has done on Galaxy devices. This sets the Galaxy Ace 3 up as an external drive, meaning that the usual drag and drop features on the desktop are still present.
Samsung also has its proprietary KIES software, which the Galaxy Ace 3 can connect to via the microUSB cable, or via KIES Air (if both devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network).
