Samsung is preparing the successor of the Galaxy S II, one of the most popular Android handsets and iPhone rivals to date. The Samsung Galaxy S III is expected to debut in February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, while the first photo taken with the phone’s camera has been purportedly leaked.
The first evidence of the Samsung Galaxy S III comes from Pocketnow, which unearthed what appears to be a test photo taken with the yet unreleased and unannounced device. The EXIF data of the photo, which can be easily faked, indicates it was taken with a phone carrying the model number GT-I9500, following the numbering patters of previous Galaxy handsets from Samsung.
The photo’s metadata indicates it was taken inside Samsung’s R&D labs in South Korea, and you can also see the back of another Samsung PC. Pocketnow reports the shooter of the photo appears to be the same person who leaked test photos of the Samsung Galaxy S II in January, months before the device was released. Further inspection of the photo shows the resolution of the camera was dialed down to 5 megapixels, apparently in an effort to mask its full capabilities. TechRadar believes the image was a plant by Samsung.
Samsung Galaxy S III Specs
Korean site ETNews claims the Samsung Galaxy S III will be nothing short of a super phone. The phone is said to feature a large Super AMOLED Plus HD display at 1280-by-720 pixels, continuing the trend of large-screen Android phones.
The Samsung Galaxy S III will feature a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, when most current smartphones feature only 1GB or RAM, the report says, as well as the latest version of Android, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Although the purported test photo from the S III was dialed down to 5-megapixels (the camera resolution of the Galaxy Nexus), the upcoming phone is said to feature a 12-megapixel camera, building up from the S II’s 8-megapixel shooter.
If the Samsung Galaxy S III sounds like music to your ears, you shouldn’t delay your next smartphone purchase. Even if the device is announced in February, it would take a considerable period of time until it arrives with carriers in the United States. Carriers usually alter the phone’s design and sometimes even its screen size to differentiate their offerings.
