Samsung unveiled its flagship Galaxy S III in May, as a direct rival to Apple's iPhone in the battle for the smartphone crown. The response to the phone has been staggering, with the company
expecting to sell 10 million units by the end of July.
The third iteration in the Galaxy S series offers face-recognition technology and improved voice-activated controls as well as a more powerful processor that lets users watch video and write emails simultaneously.
It also has a 4.8-inch (12.2-centimetre) screen that is 22 percent larger than the S2, while it can detect eye movements and override the automatic shutdown if the user is looking at the screen.
Galaxy S III sales are expected to power Samsung to a $5.9 billion profit in the April-June quarter, a new record for the company.
But the phone "designed for humans" hasn't been without its share of problems. First came reports that a
Samsung Galaxy S III had "exploded" in a user's car in Ireland. Samsung said it would be investigating the incident and Saturday
blamed an external energy source for the incident, not the phone.
Now a survey has revealed that a large number of Galaxy S III owners have reported problems with the smartphone's microphone.
FixYa, a website that connects people discussing support issues with various consumer products, reveals that many S III owners have reported "a microphone malfunction which causes users to be unable to hear the person on the other end of the line."
The problem doesn't end after hanging up the phone, as it causes "signal strength will deteriorate (and oftentimes disappear) for minutes at a time." The suggested fix to the problem seems to be update to the latest firmware and restoring factory settings.
Around 15% of the problems were about the Galaxy S III's battery life, with an equal number complaining about the "device getting hot".
FixYa revealed similar stats for other popular smartphones. Microphone malfunction was the biggest problem for another Samsung manufactured smartphone, the Galaxy Nexus. Most iPhone 4S users complained about its battery life, while BlackBerry Curve users reported "random reboots" as their biggest grouse.
With agency inputs