After the announcement by Samsung of its eagerly-awaited Galaxy S III back on the fifth of this month, consumers have had to remain content with video reviews and hands on previews in order to catch a glimpse of the device. The wait for the release is finally over, though, and the grand launch is today taking place across 28 different countries.
It enters the market as the successor to the Galaxy S II, and considering Samsung’s elder previous flagship device carries the acclaim of most popular Android device to date, the S III certainly has huge shoes to fill. Given that some nine million consumers pre-ordered the latest installment to the Galaxy S series, the likelihood of the S III matching or eclipsing that of its predecessor looks extremely high.
The device itself – which yielded mixed reviews when announced over three weeks ago, is an undeniable powerhouse. It’s one of only a handful of smartphones to boast a quad-core processor, and as well as all of the standard high-end features such as LTE and an 8-megapixel camera, also boasts a 4.8" Super AMOLED HD display for stunning visual quality.
It’ll more than likely go head-to-head with the HTC One X for Android supremacy, and given both are similar in specification, one suspects the majority of consumers are likely to opt for the more popular series of the Korean electronics giant.
Most of the countries seeing a release today are in Europe and the Middle East, and the United Kingdom is included, although it appears only the 16GB white version of the device will be available, which is indeed disappointing. The 32GB white version, as well as both variations of the blue model have been delayed, it could be several weeks before any of the other models go on general sale.
Samsung also announced that a 64GB model would be releasing sometime after the initial launch, although given the unforeseen launch delays, don’t expect to see the larger model anytime soon. Whilst it’s not a big deal to most, many consumers wouldn’t purchase an iPhone until it offered 64GB of storage, and although the S III can be enhanced by means of a microSD card, quite a few prefer to have the flash storage already in place.
There’s no word on the Stateside release, although June 20th is a date that keeps cropping up. Then again, given the huge delays of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, those of you residing in the US should probably wait for an official announcement.
(source Samsung)
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the web.