so it can properly emulate DS games

Yeah I was going to mention the gorilla glass but didn't really want to get involved in this conversation as one of the party is an admitted Apple hater so it is never likely to be an unbiased opinion. But what the hell.

What I wonder is how the hell they can put all that hardware together for a reasonable price? I know that Samsung, like Apple produce their own processors but still it must add a lot to the price of the device ....  unless the chip is not very good.

I too am thinking Xperia Z as I am with Android all the way.

So not an innovative feature? I want waterproof to become standard in all portable devices. It just makes sense, drop in a puddle, or toilet, it wont matter.

So could this thing emulate the Dreamcast?

According to the BBC today Sony is now in fourth place.  I suppose it's all down to which source you choose to believe.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/2/15/smartphone-wars-2012-finalized-top-10-facts2c-manufacturers2c-platforms2c-actual-users.aspx

Sony was fourth on the Jul-Sep quarter, sixth on the Oct-Dec quarter.

Tomi Ahonen is the guy who has provided the best predictions and analysis of the smartphone market for years.

The S4 sounds good, but I'm skeptical of its battery life. A lot of my friends who owned an S3 would always see their phone's battery drop fast, and some would need to carry a charger around with them.
My sister was planning to buy an Iphone 5, but I convinced her to wait for the S4, and then to see if she liked the Xperia Z or S4 better.

The new Exynos isn't a 8-core processor exactly like you are thinking. It's one of the first new ARM processors using the BIG.little technology. NVidia did something similar with Tegra 3, that had 4 powerful cores and a fifth one with lower clock that was activated when idle to allow te phone/tablet to deactivate the quad-core component and go into a low power mode. But that isn't BIG.little, is just a simpler concept that can't achieve the same level of power saving.

In a BIG.little SoC (I will use Exynos as an example), you got 8 cores. 4 of them are the new Cortex-A15 powerful cores at higher clocks. The other 4 are weaker ARM cores woth lower clocks. The SoC (or the OS, depends on the implementation) can load balance between cores, always keepping only 4 cores running, in any combination between the high end ones or the low power cores. If you run a game optimized for dual cores, it will use 2 powerful ones and 2 weaker ones.

Of course, the weaker ones are basically as powerfull as the older Exynos on Galaxy S3 while the BIG cores are way faster. But in the end, it's a quad core processor that can choose between speed or low power in the go. It's about getting more power and more battery life at the same time and that is much more useful than a real 8-core phone.

Only things she really ever does on her phone is use Facebook and play Family Feud.

Although I am for the notion that we should write custom firmware on our phones when possible (too many opportunities for easy upgrades/fantastic tweaks to choose from), it shouldn't be the norm "Oh, that phone sucks? Time to CFW". The average customer should be able to pick up a phone and have a fantastic experience with it out of the box. That's part of what turns some people away from Google Android to iPhone.

As for SGS3, I have one too and it's very very zippy. It's one of the most responsive, power efficient (good battery for a smartphone), and convenient phones I've ever used... I don't use the standard keyboard, I use some Japanese/English mix one, and it works very well... I text so quickly with it and I put it back in my pocket when I'm done. Dialer is fast, and it has caller ID (the kind on a standard phone), Thank God... I didn't expect anything that great, but God am I glad I left HTC for this. HTCs don't have much going for them in the way of battery life these days...  which is a big deal for me.

The touch is just so responsive... honestly, I'd be happy keeping this more than 2 years. I was happy with the phone I had before (almost didn't upgrade), but this one just feels so good in my hands and doesn't fight with me and I'm trying to respond to someone quickly. I really hated that with my other phone. The screen was only a little smaller, but it didn't chirp along with the text input as this one. It just feels so good to use in general. The only thing that kinda annoys me sometimes when I am out walking my dog/exercise, is the touch keys... I have to hope I don't drop it when I pull it out to change songs or check my distance.

I have been all Samsung lately. Not really on purpose either. I've purchased two tablets from them in the past 7 months and now we have two Samsung phones (my husband has the Note II) to add to the list. I hate the way you have to use Kies to sync everything to the computer, but I do like that I can sync over Wifi and get my text messages at my computer and response without getting up... if it infringes on my time to get up and check for my phone, then I generally won't answer back at all.