So there’s one phone that’s set to stand out at this years Mobile World Congress in Barcelona come late February: the Samsung Galaxy S III. What do we officially know about this device? Jack shi- all. But we don’t need Samsung to say anything when we have rumours swirling all around the internet and in this post I hope to lay out some of the more credible stuff.
The image you’re looking at above isn’t a render of the Galaxy S III like it was reported to be earlier, instead it’s just a cool concept made by a Samsung fan for some competition. Props to him/her on their creative skills — it looks really good, maybe Samsung can take a hint for future devices.
Most of the credible noise is coming from Russian tech wiz Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) who has tweeted a few times referencing a new device he has his hands on and later gives greater hints that it is indeed the Galaxy S III. I tend to have belief towards Eldar as he did have his hands on the Galaxy S II along with the Xperia Arc months before they were ever announced. He starts with:
HD resolution, 12 mpx camera, sw tweaks, android 4 – i like my new phone. Eager to see official announcement in Barcelona
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) January 24, 2012
So we’re looking at a screen at or around 1280×720 (we think it’s a little higher and we’ll tell you why a little later); a 12MP camera that will obviously shoot 1080p; Software Tweaks which later relate to the CPU powering the device and battery consumption; and finally Android 4.0 which is expected. Eldar also says he can’t wait for an announcement at Barcelona which puts the icing on the cake for the annual launch taking place at MWC later next month.
Hmmm a lot of tweaks about battery power consumption. I like it 🙂
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) January 24, 2012
Samsung announced a few weeks ago that all the devices they launch this year will run for a full day even with fairly heavy use, so the tweaks would allow the Galaxy S III to keep up with that promise. Now how about that CPU?
Do u think 1.5-1.6 GHz quadcore is too much for phone?
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) January 24, 2012
There’s really no context to this tweet at all, though once we put it against the next tweet it kind of makes more sense.
@SamMobiles both version are exists
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) January 24, 2012
So there are two versions of the Galaxy S III floating around and Eldar confirms that he has some sort of contact with the device(s). So with this tweet in mind the previous tweet about a 1.5-1.6Ghz Quad-Core CPU makes the Galaxy S III sounds like an absolute monster. Samsung do have their own Exynos 4412 SoC that is quad-core and clocked at 1.5GHz, so it’s fairly clear that it will be the CPU behind the Galaxy S III. A conspiracy theory here could be that there will be two versions of the Galaxy S III — one for regular consumers, one for power users, however, that seems completely unlikely. Now to wrap things up.. how good is the screen on the Galaxy S III going to be?
@SamMobiles better
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) January 24, 2012
A screen that’s better than the current Galaxy S II — that’s pretty easy, just bump up the resolution to 1280×720 and you’re good to go. A screen that’s better than the Galaxy Note — well.. I don’t know. Maybe it won’t be pentile. Maybe it will have a higher ppi. Who knows. Eldar does point out in another tweet that it won’t be 3D, so that’s one less piece of crap we don’t have to worry about.
LTE version for Australia
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’d know that Telstra have their 4G network up and running for smartphones with the introduction of the HTC Velocity 4G. Telstra have said that they’re currently testing 3-4 more devices to launch on the 4G network before the middle of the year. With the Galaxy S III expected to launch in April it’s fair to put two and two together and assume that it might be one of those devices. The Galaxy S II was (and still is) a huge success here in Australia and if Telstra wish to continue capitalising off of that success, they may as well put it on 4G for those extra bragging rights.
Granted this is NOT hard data, but that looks like a dedicated camera key on the bottom (left hand side) a lot of people wanted that.
so is that just a mockup or is it assumed there’ll be no buttons like the Galaxy Nexus?
Buy buy galaxy nexus….. Hello sammy g iii !
bye
Haha true…… Doh! Wrong bye! I blame voice input 🙂
That mockup with the Harbour Bridge on screen looks like a winner. If Samsung wants to send me the documents I’ll sign off on it now.
I think it’s pretty obvious, and has been for a while at least for me, what the SGS3 will have.
Exynos 4412 Quad Core 1.5/1.6Ghz with the Mali T-604 (5x faster than the Mali 400)Probably 16/32 models but that doesn’t bother me muchSuper AMOLED HD Plus screen at 4.5-4.7inches12Megapixel CameraThinner and ICSPlus Sammy announced better battery life for all smartphones like you said
Updated the post accordingly. The Exynos 4412 is spot on, I forgot all about it. The 1.5GHz clock speed lines up perfectly also.
Just realised, he said there are two models floating around a dual core and quad core. Couldnt the dual core be the Exynos 5512 maybe slated for release only in America because it will be put into production in Q2 unlike the 4412. Or perhaps like you said, a power version and a regular one but the quad core could in fact be the regular one! Just theorising though, with this rumour backing up my previous beliefs i am almost certain the 4412 will be released with the S III because if there was a 5250 model it could only… Read more »
i’m just dissappointed that they didn’t change the design much according to your source 🙁
You need to learn about power gating Buzz. A quad core SoC does not necessarily use any more battery than a dual core (or a single core) one, when they are properly power gated (which the 2012 SoCs are all are). When the second, third and fourth core are not in use, they are completely asleep and because they are power gated, they don’t use any power. If there is need for them, they become active, execute the code, and then go back to their asleep mode again. In fact there is evidence to suggest that a quad core will… Read more »
Fair enough. I’d have to see it in action to believe it, but yes I understand.
Especially if it uses something like the tegra 3 companion core.
That mock up of the SIII looks exactly like the previous mock ups of the iPhone 5 and if that’s anything to go by it won’t look anything like that.
Yeh but the difference is Samsung can actually do it !!!! (apart from that non-existent bezel)
Could stare at this all day
Added another photo of it for you to stare at.