Spring has sprung and the annual price tag slashing at Amazon has started once again. This time every year many smartphone manufacturers began to roll out their spring and summer lineups, and that means good things for smartphone shoppers. Best-selling handsets often times see substantial price discounts, even though they may still rank among the leaders in smartphone features and performance. Such is the case with the Sprint Galaxy S III 16 GB variant, which currently retails for around $.99 at the Amazon Wireless store online.
The handset was announced in early June and released in late June of last year, and as the Galaxy S4 gets closer and closer to arriving in the tech hungry United States, online retailers like Amazon want to clear stock of their current bestsellers. The Sprint Galaxy S III in the 16 GB version is a consistent Top 10 seller at Amazon, and has been a flagship performer for Sprint’s new 4G LTE system in the US. The Sprint 4G LTE network currently claims more than 58 major markets, which Sprint vows to spread nationwide by the end of 2013.
Compared to other mobile handsets with a 4.8 inch display, the Jelly Bean powered 16 GB Galaxy S III for Sprint is skinny and light. The handset measures 5.38 x 2.78 x 0.34 inches (136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm) and weighs just 4.70 ounces (133 g), and the Jelly Bean 4.1 OS meshes with the Samsung TouchWiz UX UI. Social media junkies will appreciate that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Picasa applications have been pre-installed, and the phone delivers NFC wireless support out-of-the-box.
The large 4.80 inch Super AMOLED screen referred to above is capable of rendering more than 16 million different colors at a rate of 306 pixels over every single inch of display space. That gives the capacitive, multitouch display resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels overall, and built-in proximity and light sensors help squeeze every minute out of a single battery charge. On the Sprint 4G LTE network the 2,100 mA battery of the Galaxy S III can provide up to 9.2 hours of talk time from a full battery charge.
Powering the handset on the speedy Sprint network is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8960 system chip that is designed around a dual core 1.5 GHz Krait central processor. Graphics are handled by an Adreno 225 GPU, and the Sprint Galaxy S III offers two times the typical amount of onboard RAM memory, at 2.0 GB. A microSD slot is available, providing storage expansion capability and access to offboard data. The handset is also available in a 32 GB model from Sprint.
Most smartphone owners these days use the camera built into the back of their handset as their main shooter, and the 8.0 megapixel rear facing camcorder on the Sprint Galaxy S III delivers a host of features. Capable of recording video in 1,080P HD resolution and 30 frames per second, that rear snapper comes equipped with a built-in LED flash, multishot burst mode, extra-wide panorama capture, simultaneous HD video and image recording and a special effects package. Sprint Galaxy S III owners can also video chat and place video calls with the front facing 1.9 megapixel camera.
