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May 8, 2012, 6:16 a.m.
Joshua Flood Senior Analyst

​ The Samsung Galaxy SIII was unveiled last week in Earls Court, London. The glitzy launch event, Samsung Unpacked 2012, went to plan and the large European and Korean audience seemed impressed with Samsung’s latest smartphone. British television presenter, Suzi Perry, hosted the event and Samsung’s President of Mobile Communications, JK Shin, revealed the new smartphone by plucking it from his jacket pocket on stage.

The hype and publicity around the new Samsung Galaxy S3 has been significant. Numerous rumours have spread around the industry and now it’s time to put them all to rest. ABI Research highlights the new features and specifications of the new smartphone:

  • The smartphone screen size has been increased from 4.3 inches to 4.8 inches , however, it should be noted the overall handset size has not increased substantially and the handset design is curvier than the rectangle shaped S2.
  • The S3 dimensions: height - 136mm ; width - 70mm ; and depth – 8.6mm . The smartphone weighs 133 grams .
  • The handset will be available in pebble blue or white marble rather than the simple black or white offered for the S2.
  • The smartphone’s primary camera remains 8 megapixels, however, the camera does offer some new features; Best Shot , which takes 8 pictures and picks the best photo out of the 8 shots.
  • The processor has increased to a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor matching the HTC One X and Huawei Ascend. Additionally, the smartphone’s memory has increased from 16GB to 32GB.
  • A new feature called S Voice allows users to command their S3 for initiating calls, sending texts/emails, requesting songs, setting reminders, taking photos and even snoozing their alarms. The handset accepts commands in 8 languages .
  • Additionally, the phone had a motion recognition proximity feature which allows users to highlight a contact and simply lift the phone to their ear and the phone will automatically begin ringing the selected contact.
  • Smart Stay uses the front-facing camera to detect if the user is looking at the screen and keeps the display from timing out.
  • Buddy Share automatically forwards your group photo to your friends using face-recognition. The face-recognition software will identify the subject’s face and send the photo to them via text message or email.
  • Smart Alert catches missed messages and calls and notifies the user of these missed statuses by vibrating when picked up after being idle.
  • The new S Beam feature combines NFC technology with WiFi Direct and allows users to share a photos, videos and music with other Samsung Galaxy SIII. Users need only touch phones and the items can be transferred over without Wi-Fi or cellular signal.
  • Finally, Samsung’s AllShare Cast and Play software lets users wirelessly connect to other Samsung Galaxy S3s, televisions, tablets or PCs, and share content. This new feature is based on the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) guidelines which enable device owners to share digital media between key electronic devices.