It's finally here, folks. Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy S III at its event in London after teasing the device with websites and videos. The specs of the Galaxy S III have been one of the hottest topics in the mobile world over the past several months, so let's just dive right in now that they're official. Samsung's newest member of the Galaxy S family packs a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display, 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad quad-core processor, 8-megapixel rear camera, 1.9-megapixel shooter around front, 21Mbps HSPA+ support (with LTE models coming to the U.S.), 16GB/32GB of internal storage with a 64GB model coming soon, microSD slot, NFC, and a 2,100mAh battery powering the whole show. Also on board is Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich beneath Samsung's TouchWiz UI.
Samsung's also touting a few new special software features that are built into the Galaxy S III. One such feature is "Smart Stay," which uses the front facing camera to monitor your eyes and learn how you're using the phone. For example, this feature is that the GSIII can recognize that you're browsing the web and decide to keep the screen brightness raised. "S Voice" is a feature that'll allow for information search and device commands, like saying "Snooze" when your alarm goes off but you want to sleep some more. There's also "S Beam," which is a beefier version of the Android Beam feature built into Ice Cream Sandwich and will allow for the quick transfer of large files, like moving a 1GB movie in 3 minutes.
Speaking of movies, the Galaxy S III also packs in a feature referred to as "Pop up play," which Samsung says will allow users to watch a video anywhere on your screen while simultaneously running other tasks. The Galaxy S III's camera includes a couple of tricks of its own, like a zero-lag shutter speed, a "Burst Shot" function that takes 20 continuos photos and the "Best Photo" feature that'll select the 8 best images and present them to you.
What about launch details, you ask? Samsung says that the Galaxy S III will be available on 296 operators in 145 countries, so there's a good chance that one of your local operators will offer the device. The GSIII is scheduled to arrive in Europe at the end of May, and those of us in the U.S. will be able to get our mitts on the device this summer. No specific U.S. carrier availability was mentioned.
So there's the Samsung Galaxy S III. The hype surrounding Samsung's next Galaxy smartphone has gotten pretty crazy as of late, and while it's up to you to decide whether or not the Galaxy S III lives up to that hype, there's no question that the device is packing some pretty high-end specs and interesting software tweaks, too. Perhaps the best news, though, is that those of us in the U.S. won't have to wait months and months for the Galaxy S III to make its way stateside. Here's to hoping that we hear more on U.S. availability soon. Now that the Galaxy S III is officially official, what do you all make of it? Does it live up to your expectations? Do you think you might pick up one of the U.S. variants when they arrive?
Read more: PhoneDog.com