The Galaxy S III hit the Sprint wireless network on June 21 of this year, and that handset became one of the first to offer 4G LTE connectivity for that wireless carrier. Offered in either a Pebble Blue or Marble White chassis, the handset delivers Near Field Communications (NFC) support out-of-the-box, delivering wireless retail payment processing options through the Google Wallet app, as well as wireless data share functionality through applications like Android Beam. The Samsung Galaxy S III for Sprint delivers Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0 operating system out-of-the-box, and is rumored to be the first smartphone to receive the new 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system update as soon as it is available. The handset sells for $149 on contract at select retailers.
Buy the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III starting at $149.
In typical smartphone form factor as a rectangular slab, the Galaxy S III is slim at only 0.34 inches (8.6 mm) and light at 4.70 ounces (133 g). As light and slim as the thinnest, the handset still delivers one of the larger displays found on any smartphone, a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen measuring 4.80 inches. A layer of second generation Corning Gorilla Glass 2 protects that display against scratching and chipping, and visuals are rendered in more than 16 million separate colors. Pixel density runs at the high-end compared to most other smartphones, at 306 pixels per inch, creating an overall display resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels. Samsung’s TouchWiz UI v5.0 Android overlay meshes with the ICS 4.0 operating system.
Talk time on the Galaxy S III handset runs above average for a 4G smartphone, and up to 9.2 hours is delivered from a single charge of the 2,100 mAh battery on board. The hardware package on board the handset includes a Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon set of microchips which centers around the dual core 1.5 GHz central processor. A separate Adreno 225 GPU handles all graphics processing, and the Galaxy S III leads all smartphones by delivering a full 2.0 GB of RAM memory. The handset also delivers 16 GB of built-in storage space. A microSD slot providing microSDHC and microSDXC support is present, and accepts cards up to 64 GB.
The 8.0 megapixel camcorder facing out of the back of the Galaxy S III comes with a built-in LED flash, and provide simultaneous HD video and image capture. With a host of features like a CMOS image sensor, special effects package, video stabilizer and face detection, that camcorder allows for extreme customization of the video which is captured at 1,080P HD resolution. Up front is a VGA quality chat cam, and the Sprint Galaxy S III delivers Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Picasa applications preloaded. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S III starting at $149.
