The most recent bit of news concerning the popular Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone has to do with a rumor regarding a possible operating system upgrade. The handset arrived with Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0 out-of-the-box as its operating system, but quickly received an upgrade to Android’s 4.1 version. Currently running the Jelly Bean OS, there is industry-wide and Blogosphere-fueled speculation that the Galaxy S III smartphone will skip over Android 4.2.2 and head directly to 4.3.
The Samsung Galaxy S III 16GB is available for a reduced sale price now starting at $0.01 – $549.00.
We will know for sure on Thursday, July 24, when Google is purportedly going to debut Jelly Bean 4.3 officially. The current rumors swirling around the Galaxy S III getting an attractive leapfrog over Android 4.2 and going directly to the upcoming Jelly Bean 4.3 operating system also involve the flagship Galaxy S4 as the first phone to deliver Key Lime Pie 5.0. Check back here for an update after the July 24 Google event, and we will fill you in on any Galaxy S III related news and announcements.
On the price side of the equation, the Sprint Galaxy S III 16 GB 4G Android smartphone is priced about as low as you can get without being totally free. If you have one penny and don’t mind agreeing to the typical two-year mobile contract, the phone that multiple mobile conferences and industry watchdogs gave the Best Smartphone of 2012 label can be yours. The phone is slim at 0.34 inches (8.6 mm), and weighs just 4.73 ounces (134 g), making it slim and light in comparison to other 4G capable smartphones with as large a display.
That screen in question is a True HD offering with a resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels, delivered at 306 pixels per inch. The Super AMOLED screen requires the standard capacitive, multitouch gestures for device navigation, and boasts scratch and chip resistance thanks to a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass. On the Sprint 4G LTE system in the US, the Galaxy S III can provide more than 8.0 hours of talk time and 8.3 days of standby battery power.
As one of the first 4G smartphones for Sprint to provide simultaneous HD video and image capture, the Galaxy S3 claims an 8.0 megapixel camcorder as its main camera. That rear snapper records video in 1,080P HD resolution and 30 frames per second, and there is also a front facing chat cam on board. Processing power comes from a dual core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU, a full 2.0 GB of RAM system memory is on board, as is microSD, microSDHC and microSDXC memory card support up to 64 GB.
