The Samsung Galaxy S III

Samsung unveils a new star

The Samsung Galaxy S III is poised to go supernova

by Alvin Chong 

 

Updated 08:55 AM May 04, 2012

 

LONDON - More than a year after the debut of the Galaxy S II, Samsung unveiled the next iteration of their flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S III, at the Samsung Unpacked event London earlier this morning.


Powered with a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor, the Galaxy S III comes with a 4.8" Super-AMOLED screen with 1280x720 resolution. The phone is available with 16, 32 or 64GB of on-board memory, with a micro-SD slot that accepts up to an additional 64GB. It has a rear-facing, 8 megapixel camera that shoots full HD (1080p) video, and a front-facing 1.9 megapixel camera that shoots 720p video. Likewise, it can also playback full-HD (1080P) video in a variety of multimedia codecs. The quad-core processor even gives the phone enough power to view a HD video in windowed mode while other apps are running at the same time.

The Galaxy S III is 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.55 mm and weighs 133 grams, which makes it bigger and heavier than the Galaxy S II, due to its larger screen and additional hardware. It will be available in two colours: Marble white and pebble blue.

Samsung introduced a feature called S Beam with the Galaxy S III, which combines near-field communications (NFC) technology with Wi-Fi. Galaxy S III phones which are tapped together will connect with each other through NFC, but data transfer between the phones is carried out over Wi-Fi. This gives S Beam transfer speed of up to 300Mbps, as compared to 400kbps speeds for current NFC technology.

The Galaxy S III runs on the latest Android platform, Ice Cream Sandwich. Samsung has tweaked the software to suit its "Inspired by Nature, Designed for Humans" philosophy. It comes with a nature-inspired UI, with features such as a lock screen where the screen ripples like water when you drag your finger across it.

Some of the key phone features include "Smart Stay", which allows the smartphone's screen to stay lit, as long as it detects that someone is looking at it. Other smart features include auto-dialing when the phone is raised to the face, and updating the user on missed alerts when the phone is picked up for the first time after a long interval.

While the S II was powered with Vlingo's voice talk app, the S III comes with "S Voice", Samsung's own version of a voice-controlled solution that is packed with both Samsung's and various third-party technology, and allows voice-activated access in various apps.

The 8 megapixel rear-facing camera also comes with upgraded software, zero shutter lag, and other upgrades. These include "Burst Shot", which takes up to 20 shots at a rate of 6fps, comparable to that of some DSLRs, and "Best Photo" where the phone selects the best photo from those just taken. The camera is also capable of capturing still photos at the same time as it is filming video. Photo tagging has been simplified to just tapping on faces in the photo, which the S III will try to match with faces stored in the contact list, Google+ and Facebook.

The recommended retail price and release date for the Samsung Galaxy S III for Singapore is currently unknown, but it will go on sale in Europe on May 29. The release will start in Europe before being rolled out to other markets.


Source:  http://www.todayonline.com