Samsung Galaxy S III - What to expect

Apple fans have the iPhone 4S and Android fans have the Samsung Galaxy S II. For Android enthusiasts, there’s now going to be a new Android superphone - the Samsung Galaxy S III. It’s not uncommon to see people walking around with a large Galaxy Note in their hands and S IIs aren’t too rare, too, considering they’re both phones that have been priced above the 25,000 mark. The next generation of devices featuring powerful quad-core processors was kicked off by HTC with their One X, a device we quite liked. So much so that we thought it even beat the iPhone 4S in many ways. There are many who have been awaiting the successor to Samsung S II, the S III. It’s the 3rd of May and the device is scheduled to be announced tonight (Indian Standard Time) and it’s likely that the device will hit the mark today and in the weeks to come.

The rumour mills have been generating a lot of speculative articles and news over the months leading up to this day. A lot of it can be disregarded and there are a few things that could be present in the S III. Here’s what we think, the S III is likely to be made of. If you know what the S III is going to be like, do leave behind a post in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

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Quad-core performance

Samsung is one of the popular processor manufacturers out there and it’s pretty obvious that Samsung would chose one of their own processors on their S3. The GT-i9300, as it’s likely to be called should come built with a quad-core processor. Earlier rumours suggested that it’s likely to be a 1.4GHz quad-core processor. Leaked benchmark  scores of the AnTuTu Benchmark suggest that the product is faster than even the Asus Transformer Prime tablet, which used a quad-core processor.

The four-core 1.4GHz, Exynos 4 Quad processor at the heart of the device

In the recent past, Samsung led the pack with their hardware and it seems like the Galaxy S III is going to follow that norm. The One X has already set a benchmark with its quad-core CPU, so it’ll be interesting to see how the Galaxy S III betters that. Samsung has even announced their 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor clearly mentioning that it would be part of their upcoming Galaxy device. 

4.8-inch screen size

The Galaxy Note had a massive 5.3-inch screen, while the S II came with a 4.3-inch display. The Note was too big to lug around, while the S II had a reasonably good sized display. With the S III, the display size gets a tad better now, and in all likelihood, this smartphone will have a 4.8-inch screen size. The S III might have the best of both worlds - a somewhat compact design, like the S II and also a large resolution like the one on the Galaxy Note. Samsung will maintain the same 16:9 aspect ratio, as that found on other devices. It’s expected that the S III’s 4.8-inch screen will have a 720x1280p display, at the very least.

With the S II coming with a Super AMOLED+ screen, Samsung had already dished out the best it could then, in its flagship device. Thereafter, we saw a couple of flexible AMOLED displays, which weren’t really commercial stuff. Nobody has gone beyond the 720p barrier that has been set by the Galaxy Nexus and now the HTC One X. Are we going to see a potential new display and resolution in the S III? The scales could be tipping towards a yes. 

Camera

With the popularity of apps such as Instagram and Picplz on the rise, the camera becomes a big part of any modern day smartphone. Nokia’s going to be launching their Nokia 808 PureView  with a 41MP sensor on it; the S III won’t be anywhere close to that, but expect a 12MP camera onboard. The HTC One X had an 8 MP camera and Samsung is likely to push that number up quite a bit with a larger resolution camera. The S III should have enough firepower to be able to shoot videos at 1080p, much like the HTC One X.

Samsung is likely to employ a 12MP sensor

Also, with the S III, Samsung is not going to be willing to go a notch lower, than any of the current phones. Considering the Xperia S has a 12 megapixel camera, a 12 megapixel camera in the S III is definitely expected. But then again, it isn’t about megapixels always, is it?

Design and finish

With all of the information we have, it’s easy to imagine a picture of the upcoming product. There’s also some additional information to help with that. This morning, we covered a news about the product being available in two colours - blue and white . The colours are prominent in all of the recent advertising and marketing material that’s made its way to the web. This information comes from leaked screenshots from warehouses where the new Galaxy phone is being stocked. The product is also almost definitely going to be called the Galaxy S III. Considering that the product is already present in warehouses, we can also expect quick availability of the product, once the official announcement is made later tonight. 

Stocked and ready, in two colours

The shape of the product is also easy to guess  - the phone is going to have curved corners and less of the blocky design that is found on most Android phones across brands. All of this is visible in some of the leaked manuals and diagrams of the device. There are even photos of screen-guards that hint at the shape of the product and they follow the same outline as the ones shown in the diagrams and leaked photos.

Revamped TouchWiz

Ice Cream Sandwich on its own looks pretty sexy with the Roboto font, the blue, futuristic Holo theme et al. So much so that a lot of manufacturers have been redesigning their custom ROMs for Android 4.0. With the S III, chances are rife that Samsung will launch a whole new edition of TouchWiz consisting of five icons per row, which might correlate with the 4.8-inch screen size. Besides the possible layout differences, there could be substantial customizations in the skins and the overall look of the UI. 

While their previous version of TouchWiz wasn’t disappointing by any means, with Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich UI, everybody including Samsung has been forced to up the ante. Earlier leaks showcased a user interface similar to that of stock ICS, with the only replacements being Samsung’s own icons. Will that be the final design of their new TouchWiz interface, or will they go safe with this latest update? It’s just a matter of time before we know. 

The Galaxy S3?

So, to summarize it, this could be the expected spec sheet for the Samsung Galaxy S III:

• 4.8-inch Super AMOLED+ capacitive touchscreen with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution
• 1.4GHz quad core Exynos processor
• Android 4.0 with TouchWiz UI
• 16GB internal storage
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, NFC
• GPS with A-GPS support, GLONASS
• Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, USB 2.0
• 12 megapixel camera dual LED flash, 1080p video recording
• Available in blue and white

Either way, we’d love to be proved wrong out here with our spec sheet, because with Samsung you never know. What do you think will the Galaxy S III comprise of? Let us know your thoughts and more in the comments section below.