The Samsung Galaxy S III, the smartphone du jour this summer, is now available on most the big U.S. carriers.
The Galaxy S III was available on T-Mobile on June 27, on Sprint July 1, on AT&T July 6, and will be available on Verizon Wireless on July 11.
With 16GB of storage it costs $199 with a contract in the United States, though its actual price ranges from $150 to $229 at various outlets; and runs $589 without a contract. A 32GB model is available for $50 more.
It features a 4.8-inch (120 mm) touchscreen,Android 4.04, Samsung’s Exynos 4 Quad SoC, containing a 1.4 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU and an ARM Mali-400 MP GPU, an intelligent personal assistant (S Voice), eye-tracking, wireless charging, and expanded storage. Depending on countries, it comes with different processors and RAM, and 4G LTE support.
Specifications include:
- 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor
- 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED (1280×720) display
- Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS
- Samsung TouchWiz 5.0 user interface
- 2GB RAM and 16/32GB internal ($50 price option)
- microSD card slot for memory expansion
- Bluetooth 4.0
- NFC
- 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi with support for WiFi Calling
- 8 megapixel camera with LED flash, 1.9 megapixel front facing camera
- DLNA and HDMI out with adaptor
- 2100 mAh removable battery
- Dimensions: 5.4 x 2.8 x 0.33 inches and 4.7 ounces
Reviews from C/Net, Engadget, The Verge, Gizmodo, Gotta Be Mobile and Tech Crunch have given it high praise.
The Exynos 4 Quad, used in the new Samsung Galaxy S III, uses 20% less power than the SoC in Samsung Galaxy SII and uses a smaller 32nm process.
Apple’s next-generation iPhone will be powered by a quad-core ARM processor based on Samsung’s Exynos 4 architecture, according to a new report. The third-generation iPad used the A5X, based around Samsung’s 45-nanometer architecture, also found in the A5 CPU in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The iPhone 4S uses an “A5″ processor, a custom dual-core processor clocked at 800 megahertz. That chip was first introduced in the iPad 2, where it ran slightly faster at 1 gigahertz.
The A5X has an updated integrated graphics processor. While the CPU remained dual core, the GPU was upgraded to quad core in order to push the 3.1 million pixels found on the tablet’s high-resolution display.
