As we near Mobile World Congress, more and more gossip surrounding the probably-soon-to-be-launched Samsung Galaxy SIII seem to be hitting the web. If the word is to be believed, we’re looking at a handset that could smash everything else in 2012.
Samsung Galaxy SIII: Display and cameras
Samsung’s obviously of the opinion that bigger is better, if some of its recent handsets are anything to go on. A bunch of display sizes have been thrown into the ever-spinning rumour mill, but no one’s really sure. The Samsung Galaxy SII sports a 4.3-inch SUPER AMOLED display, so you’ve got to best that.
At the high end, the Samsung Galaxy SIII display could hit the 5-inch mark. That’s according to word from ibtimes. Although hang on… Wouldn’t that encroach on the Galaxy Note’s turf? Leaked images pertaining to be the handset, meanwhile, suggest a 4.6-inch display:
The quality of the screen is going to be mega, either way. We’re talking Super AMOLED Plus, with a resolution that’ll guarantee HD imaging.
Read our Samsung Galaxy Nexus review
…Which would be no good if you didn’t have a top notch HD camera to back it up and pump in content. All signs point to 12-Megapixels on this front, with at least 720p HD video recording. It’s reported to have an LED or Xenon flash and is likely to play host to a 2-Meg front-facing cam for video calling.
Samsung Galaxy SIII: Processor
Two words: Quad. Core. The brain of Samsung’s flagship smartphone sequel is likely to be one of the first quad-core mobiles to market. The Samsung Galaxy S2 had an Exynos 4210 dual-core processor beating within its innards. For the Samsung Galaxy S3 to step up, most are expecting a quad-core architecture, and uncovered evidence for an Exynos 4412 chip meant people thought they had it all worked out: The 4412 is a 32nm number, with each of the four ARM Cortex-A9 cores running up to 1.5GHz.
Why we’re not ready for quad-core phones
But it could be something else altogether. Rival sources suggest that Sammie will pour the Mali-T604 GPU into the Samsung Galaxy SIII. It boasts 5x the graphical performance compared to the last generation of Mali graphics processors, and plays nice with quad-core devices.
Generous estimates have even gone as high as to say that the Galaxy SIII will have a quad-core processor running at 2GHz. Don’t expect that to be true: That kind of power would completely rinse the battery.
Samsung Galaxy SIII: Android 4.0
Given that samsung manufactured the Galaxy Nexus, which is the flagship device for Android 4.0, you can safely assume that the company knows its way around an Ice Cream Sandwich or two.
A recent video showed Samsung testing Android 4.0 on the Samsung Galaxy SII, but it’s not exactly what you’d call ‘stock Android’. As with all its phones, Sammie’s slathered a layer of the TouchWiz UI over the top.
This means that you won’t really see Ice Cream Sandwich as it was initially designed, but that’s never been an issue in the past. While Android 4.0 is the biggest step in the right direction yet for the OS, Samsung’s skin adds yet more user friendliness to proceedings.
Samsung Galaxy SIII: Announcement and release
The world’s waiting with baited breath for an announcement from Samsung at Mobile World Congress, which will open its doors in Barcelona on 27th February. If Samsung follows the same plan as with its predecessor, The Samsung Galaxy SIII will see its launch in April 2012.
The UK tech set to light up MWC 2012
This was all most recently hinted at by known industry insider Eldar Murtazin, who’s been tweeting that he actually has a Samsung Galaxy SIII in his pocket. He says an April launch is a guarantee, but he has been wrong in the past. Some whispers say March. You should be so lucky.
Whatever the case, it’s likely to arrive in the Spring. With the specs at its disposal and an army of Samsung Galaxy S2 fans clambering for more, it’s going to hit the ground running. We’d imagine at this stage that the only handset really set to challenge it will be the iPhone 5, which is likely to launch at the latter end of the year.
