Attention all Android fans and smartphone connoisseurs! As you all know by now, the Samsung Galaxy S III was announced in the wee hours of this Australian morning.
“Samsung’s Galaxy S III not only needs to stand out amongst a plethora of other Android-based smartphones it will also go head-to-head with the next iteration of Apple’s smartphone flag-ship the iPhone. Samsung has the advantage of time with the next iPhone due out towards the end of this year,” Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum. He went on to say that the London 2012 Summer Olympics will be the perfect opportunity for Samusng to market the new smartphone on a global scale.
Leach said that although Samsung has helped grow the Android platform in consumers hearts, much to its own advantage, the electronics giant is vulnerable to other OEMs coming in and sweeping the “must have Android device” crown away from them.
The new smartphone’s guts consist of Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9, 1 GB RAM and will ship with Android v 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
A new feature to the Galaxy line is Smart Stay. Smart Stay uses the front camera to track the users eyes. If the user looks away from the device, the camera picks this up and dims the display. Presumably a user would be able to tweak the Smart Stay settings to personal taste. Might be annoying to have a phone look like a disco if you have shifty eyes or are easily distracted.
Also included is S Voice, a language user interface. A language interface feature is nothing new on the Galaxy line, but Samsung believe that this version will blow the old versions to kingdom come. I would like to have the ability to change the type of voice used for S Voice. Think about having Michael Caine, Batman or James Earl Jones telling you to wake up in the morning.
At 4.8 inches, the Galaxy S III’s HD Super AMOLED display is a good half an inch wider than the Galaxy S II’s Super AMOLED Plus display. The display resolution jumped, the Galaxy S III is 1280 x 720, where the Galaxy S II is 480 x 800.
The newer device is point zero of an inch thicker than the Galaxy S II, which was 0.33 inches. It is noticeably slimmer than the iPhone 4S’s chunky frame of 0.38 inches.
The Galaxy S III weighs 131 grams, that’s 10 grams heavier than the Galaxy S II, yet 10 grams lighter than the iPhone 4S.
The back camera is 8 megapixels, sports a LED flash and the video resolution is 1080p at 30 frames per second. The front camera is 1.9 megapixels, with a video resolution of 720p and 30 fps.
Sensors include a compass, proximity, ambient light, gyroscope, accelerometer and barometer.
The Galaxy S III is set for a US launch of May 29 and will initially be available in pebble blue and marble white. It is confirmed that it will come in other announced colours. Australians, you are going to have to wait, as usual. Samsung Australia isn’t prepared to make any launch announcements at this stage.
Ovum expects smartphone shipments to reach 1.7 billion in 2017 and Android OS devices are expected to ensnare 48% of that figure.
“Android will dominate the smartphone market over the next five years,” said Adam Leach, principal analyst at Ovum. “While Apple has defined the smartphone market since it introduced the iPhone in 2007, we’re now seeing a sharp rise in the shipment volumes of Android, signaling its appeal to leading handset manufacturers.”
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Pebble Blue is a very weird blue. Not liking. I liked the striking blue on the lumia. I wonder how long before Telstra put it on 4G, they only just released the SGII on 4G
Oh, the pebble blue is the dark one, I thought that light one had a blue tinge to it. As a bloke I’m glad I didn’t know what pebble blue was.
I like both colours.
Re Telstra, 4G and SGIII – I think they’ll make an announcement this week.
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