A press event was finally announced by Samsung. It will take place on May 3rd in London which is about a year from the Galaxy S 2. Pretty big news as this is the "iphone" of the android world. http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/16/2951622/samsung-next-galaxy-phone-launch-date-may-3-london There's literally no solid info on the Galaxy S III. Nothing has been officially announced by Samsung. Rumors have been going around that Samsung is planning a simultaneous worldwide launch. Highly unlikely as US carriers are major scumbags. What rumors are going to come true? The soc has been rumored to be a quad core exynos soc with next gen mali gpu and integrated LTE. This is pretty big as all current galaxy phones with LTE are stuck using the inferior snapdragon s3 soc. The screen is also rumored to be super amoled plus HD at 4.6 inches (1280x720 non-pentile). The housing has been rumored to be ceramic.
I'm all for slightly larger screens but personally find 4.3" the upper limit with the current screen ratio of the SGS2, if they go to 16:9 it will be even worse. Turning on wifi takes a bit of a stretch for my thumb to reach the upper left corner at times and I feel any larger would just ruin the general ergonomics and the ability to use the device decently with one hand. They should definitely go with 1280x800 instead and keep it at 4.5" or below. Just what I prefer, but I think other people who have actually used a 4.3" or larger phone daily will likely agree. The high res screen and ceramic casing sound good, but I doubt I'll buy this. I'll more than likely pick up its replacement or something from the competition. Possibly a Win8 Nokia depending on how Win8 delivers.
I read some rumors about built in wireless charging too. I also believe 4.6" is a bit on the large side.
I'm indifferent on the screen size. My current Galaxy S II variant is 4.52" and is comfortable.. but at the same time, I have big hands (can palm a basketball). Unfortunately, this is the way flagship phones are going. Google moved to 4.65" display on the Galaxy Nexus. HTC's One X series is 4.7" as well as their Titan series on Windows Phone 7. For Android devices, it seems as the trend of anything 4.3" or lower that is releasing in the near future is going to be considered mid/low end.
I'm 6' tall and would say my hands are average for my height, but when only accounting for adult men alone I'm already above average, what about women and to a lesser extent children? I did notice today though that using the phone without the bulky case I was using the problem isn't really anywhere near as bad. With a 4.6" 16:9 screen though I can't see how it wouldn't be a problem for the majority of people to easily reach the top corners of the screen when using the device one handed. I also think 16:9 is a really bad standard for such devices but I won't harp on about that too much here. I pretty much agree with Intel's recent roadmap except for where they suddenly go back to 16:9 whenever they are close to 1080p... It's like any resolution around that figure automatically has to be 1080p now. I'd much rather have some bars on my screen for watching video and sacrifice a little size than completely fuck up general productivity.
Some videos of a "leaked" SGSIII phone came out of vietnam, http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/galaxy-s-iii-leak/ Supposed specs, 1.4GHz quad core CPU 4.6 inch Super AMOLED Plus 720x1184 resolution 320 DPI Samsung MALI 400 GPU 8MP camera LED flash 1GB RAM 16GB memory MicroSD NFC supported 2050mAh battery So glad they didn't change the aspect ratio to 16:9
That's about what I was expecting in terms of specs. My contract is up in a few months. This will probably be my next phone.
Rumors of the exynos 4412 (quad core at 1.4GHz) coming to the Galaxy S 3 have come true. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5786/exynos-4-quad-14-ghz-a9mp4-32nm-hkmg-announced-for-next-galaxy-smartphone
I'm not sold on Quad core for phones just yet. A dual core A15 sounds better to me, but being realistic I can't see actual A15 chips coming out this year let alone in a month or less. There is Krait from Qualcom, which is a cut down lower power A15 based chip. Samsung seem to want to use their own designs these days though, especially in their flagship devices. Maybe quad core will prove itself in the not too distant future...TBH I'm more concerned about the GPU prowess that CPU. Is it assumed that a quad Mali400 will be used? That could be pretty potent, but the Mali400 definitely isn't as much of a consistent performer when compared to PowerVR alternatives. With 4 of them though, maybe inconsistency won't be as big of a deal for now. I'll probably be looking at an A15/PowerVR rogue gen competitor for my next phone in a years time. Maybe by then I'll actually have a use for a fast phone
Ya, it's assumed that the same mali 400 we have now will be used, but at a higher clock. If all of this saves as much power as Samsung says it will, and Samsung bumps up the battery to at least a 2000mah battery, then it'll be good news for everybody.
Looks like no samoled+ HD. It uses same samoled HD screen as the galaxy note and galaxy nexus.. in other words, pentile if that makes a difference to you. Everything else that was assumed seems about right. I haven't read up on the software updates but they seem pretty cool at a glance. International launch is going to start May 29th and will come to US carriers in June.
performance benchmark: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5810/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-performance-preview as expected, the gpu is a beast. but what may be most important is if the exynos soc is as power efficient as krait. I'd be surprised if it is.. krait is super efficient, especially with lte. all remains to be seen.
Not a fan of the aesthetics all that much. I'm dissapointed about the 16:9 screen as well. standing in at 11mm longer than the SGS II I can already tell that it would often be annoying for me to make use of the complete screen. The rounded corners will help, but they are also much of what make it look ugly to me. Of course in landscape mode it will be like looking through a letterbox slot. My SGS2 is annoying enough for browsing in landscape already... Bah..
I'm hearing alot of complaints about the design although I'm indifferent about it. I'm just glad Samsung didn't go the way of the Nexus or HTC One X and do away with removable battery and microsd slot. I also noticed came around and put a notification LED on it finally. Originally, I was excited about the SGS3 announcement as I'm looking to get a second gen Galaxy Note when it releases and I normally would assume Samsung would base the hardware of it on the SGS3. But there's going to be alot of new things ready later this year like all of the cortex a15 soc's.. hopefully Samsung tosses one of those into the Note.
Cortex A15 powered devices is what I'll be looking at as well, probably by this time next year. I think once I put ICS on my SGS2 along with much better firmware (the one my carrier put on is slow, plus the bloat ofc) it will be like an all new phone and waiting a year shouldn't be a problem.
The Japanese model is only getting a dual core CPU but in its place a bump to 2GB RAM. Also... Looks like we Europeans may be the only ones to end up with the quad core phone. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Japan-Galaxy-S-III-More-RAM-2GB-RAM-Dual-Core,news-38597.html
The snapdragon s4 dual core is no slouch as it even bests the tegra 3 quad core in some benches. In power management, especially lte, there's currently nothing in the market even close to it. qualcomm really upped their game this time around. We'll have to wait for reviews on the galaxy s 3 exynos version to see how Samsung's soc performs against it. The gpu will undoubtedly be on top though. and I believe the Korean version of the galaxy s 3 also uses the quad core exynos as well as supporting lte over there.
Looks like the big 4 carriers in the US along with US Cellular are going to get the Galaxy S III on June 21st. 16GB model at $199 and 32GB at $249 on contract.. probably $600 and $650 for non-contract? No variants this time around. They're all going to be the same with just GSM and CDMA versions being the difference. Instead of having the exynos processor, they'll have the snapdragon s4 but with 2GB of ram. Looks like Samsung finally has some clout. http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/4/3062051/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-to-hit-five-us-carriers-in-june-staring-at-199