The Samsung Galaxy S III was released June 22 on the AT&T 4G LTE network, and is currently offered in your choice of either Marble White or Pebble Blue. There is also a rumored red Galaxy S III to be released later next month, but Samsung would neither confirm nor deny that news. That would give AT&T a red, white and blue Samsung offering for July, which is appropriate here in the US as Independence Day is just around the corner. All four major carriers in the United States will eventually offer the Galaxy S III, but AT&T benefited from delivering the much-anticipated handset before their competition, and sales support has been very strong.
Samsung recently stated that the Galaxy S III is currently selling at a rate that could support 10 million units shipped globally by the end of July. The handset just went on sale in Samsung’s home country of South Korea, and is selling as strongly there as it is in the United States. The GS III delivers one of the largest displays you will find on any smartphone, and the screen resolution is extremely high when compared to the other offerings in the mobile marketplace. That display is protected by a layer of scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 2.0.
Exceptionally thin at only 0.34 inches (8.6 mm), the GS III is also light, weighing only 4.73 ounces (134 g). Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) version 4.0.4 is present out-of-the-box, and the TouchWiz UX user interface Android overlay supports capacitive, multitouch gestures to navigate the device. Pixel density runs 306 pixels per inch on the 4.80 inch Super AMOLED display, creating an overall screen resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels. Visuals are rendered in over 16 million separate colors, and standard light and proximity sensors enhance display brightness and battery life.
AT&T’s GS III employs a Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon microchip package to run the handset, anchored by a dual core 1.5 GHz central processor. An Adreno 225 handles all graphics processing, and the GS III delivers a full 2.0 GB of RAM memory, one of the few smartphones to do so. 16 GB of storage is built-in, and the microSD slot supports cards up to 64 GB.
Near Field Communications (NFC) support is present, and the Galaxy S III offers simultaneous HD image and video capture. The 8 mp camcorder records 1,080P HD video in stereo sound, and a front facing chat cam provides video call functionality. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Picasa apps have been preloaded. You can buy the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III starting at $149.
