The Samsung Galaxy S3 god phone is here!

OK maybe an over-dramatic title but this handset has certainly been treated like some kind of higher existence since it was first rumoured. Why? Well the S2 is undoubtedly the David Beckham of the Android world, the cover poster, the hero, the phone that actually managed to turn iPhone users. Not all of them, but it made a scratch.

Samsung hope for more of the same with the originally titled S3, lets find out some more.

Let’s start with facts. The phone goes on sale May 30th in the UK with Orange and Phones4U already lined up. It will go on sale in 145 countries using 4G where available.

To start we’re looking at 2 colour variations from the off. A metallic blue and a solid glossy white. The phone is covered by Hyperglass for protection. It’s clear Samsung have learnt from Apple here and know people like choice. It also worked well for Sony with the Xperia S line and so who can blame them from knocking up two cases.

The first big improvement is screen size and quality. We’re looking at a lavish 4.8″ super AMOLED. Samsung have packed 319 PPI into that display so slightly less than the iPhone  resolution given it’s 1280×720 display. Also lower than the Xperia S.

We’re looking at mega power here. Quad core Exynos chip running at 1.4GHz is super phone territory, backed up with 1GB of RAM it should still power through most tasks with ease.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 offers the same 8 megapixels as the Galaxy S2, rather than upping the stakes to 12 megapixels as we’d hoped.

Voice control also features heavily. “S Voice” can respond to spoken orders such as “wake up” when its screen is off, “snooze” for an alarm, or to play a particular song, take pictures etc..

It also responds to gestures, so that lifting the phone to the face while sending a text message will dial the recipient’s number instead, very clever indeed.

The S3 brings with it the latest outing of Samsung’s TouchWiz software, which is the skin it has applied over the standard-issue Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Not quite as good as Sense it is still progression, and the new TouchWiz allows Samsung to create a more personal, friendly appeal to Android that is a contrast to the stark, techy feel of stock ICS.

Overall the S3 looks more like a big incremental update to the S2 than a new phone, but then it should be, it;s called the Galaxy S3. It’s likely to be a runaway success and a big hit providing that testing has been sufficient and we see no bugs or battery surprises.

We’ll all be watching this make or break Android 4 in the mobile world. Good luck, there are a fair few who would like to see it fail.

Full specs after the break.

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