SAMSUNG GALAXY S III UNVEILED

The iPhone’s toughest opponent is here.......

The Samsung Galaxy S franchise can rival some of the best in Hollywood. First the Galaxy S pleased critics and the fans alike, and then the sequel – the Galaxy S II –  did what only a handful of films have done, and outperformed its predecessor. The S II crossed the magic 20 million sales mark in February this year and a month later won the Smartphone of the Year at the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. To keep the wave of euphoria going, Samsung last night lifted the covers off the third edition of the Galaxy in London.

There’s little doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S III is the most anticipated Android Smartphone of 2012 and it's fitting that Samsung, one of the sponsors of the Olympics, chose London for its debut. Android’s rapidly growing fan base has been flooding the web with rumoured SIII specs almost since the debut of the SII in 2011, and thankfully the final specs more or less live up to many of the wish lists.

The 4.8-inch Super Amoled HD screen is one of the highlights and gives the SIII a slight edge over the HTC One X (read our review here) and the Sony Xperia S (read our review here). The device is powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core processor and a 2100mAh battery and comes with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal memory. There’s also a microSD slot for more memory and a 50GB Dropbox account for Cloud storage. The 8MP shooter may not be best in its class, but expect a camera that more than does the job, with interesting value-adds like a 20-shot burst mode that automatically chooses the best image.

The SIII runs on Android 4.0 ICS and has quite a few tricks to impress the uninitiated flock at a nightclub. There’s Smart Stay, which uses the front cam to detect if your eyes are actually looking at the screen and automatically dims when you look away, and there’s the perceptive yet scary Direct Call. If you have a person's contact details or a text message open and you move the handset towards your ear, DC will auto-dial that person. S Voice, Samsung’s Siri equivalent, listens to almost all your voice commands (unlike your girlfriend) and lets you do anything from snapping a picture to locking the phone.