Galaxy S III coming to five US carriers this month sans quad-core CPU

Shawn Knight

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Staff member

Samsung has announced plans to bring their flagship Galaxy S III smartphone to the US this month through five different carriers. The bad news is that it won’t be the same quad-core handset already available in Europe and India.

The phone will be available through AT&T, U.S. Cellular, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint with the latter three offering the phone starting on June 21 for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement. T-Mobile specifically said they would offer the Galaxy S III in both metallic blue or ceramic white.

Samsung’s new flagship launched in Europe on May 29 complete with a quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos processor and a GPU that is 65 percent faster than the one found in the Galaxy S II.

The US version doesn’t have the Exynos processor, but rather a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 clocked at 1.5GHz. Samsung says that the dual-core processor features similar performance to the quad-core part without sacrificing battery life. While that may be true, consumers are also losing bragging rights that a quad-core handset would deliver. It's worth noting that the same thing also happened with HTC's One X as it was downgraded to a dual-core for the US launch.

Processor aside, the phone remains untouched with a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen operating at 1280 x 720 resolution with Gorilla Glass 2.0 coating, 1GB of RAM, an 8MP rear camera and a 1.9MP front-facing lens. The phone is compatible with 4G LTE and HSPA+ 42 networks and comes preloaded with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Does the exclusion of the quad-core processor affect the probability that you would buy this phone, granted you had your eyes on it since the overseas launch last month?

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I'm in need of getting a new smartphone, as mine (4G EVO) is falling apart and it is really slow and buggy, I was gonna get Galaxy S2 but then decided to wait for S3, I was excited for the quad core as I want something as fast as possible, I know dual core will be way better than my single core, but now wondering if it worth to go with S3 instead of S2 and save me $100.
 
This article is promoting 4-Core simply for bragging right? Typical tech site. I would rather take the Qualcomm S4 dual-core for better battery life. Both the quad-core Exynos and Qualcomm S4 have great reviews.
 
The US version will have 2GB of RAM instead of 1GB as in the international versions
 
It wasn't "downgraded." The S4 is a superior SoC, not only because it delivers similar performance with 2 less cores, but because it--unlike Exynos--has an integrated LTE radio while still having comparable battery life.
 
Well my question is how is it going to stand up to use? I see it everyday. Someone falls for the hype on a smartphone, and then wonders why their phone starts acting up once they have downloaded a ton of apps. Sometimes faster is better, but I prefer to think that battery life is a huge issue. Some may be awed by the speed of a phones processor, im impressed by how a phone handles its power use. Will I have to charge my phone sometimes 3x a day? Is my uber screen going to be 80% of the power useage? Those would be the questions I would pose to the makers of the phone.
 
And of course we all care because all we do is run benchmarks on our phones or use apps to render movies in 3d for later viewing on our home theaters.
 
Sounds like we may have another of those Q6600 + 8800 GT is enough for anything users. You don't think more speed is better? You think these benchmarks only translate to faster benchmarking? It can affect the user experience if the machine is faster.
 
<p>And of course we all care because all we do is run benchmarks on our phones or use apps to render movies in 3d for later viewing on our home theaters.</p>
Actually I use my SGS2 as a portable media centre. Much easier than carrying around a laptop. And the SGS2, while fast, could be faster in general use.

The hardware tech has to lead the software otherwise the software is unusable anyway. Tech advancement is driven by high end users who want the speed to open up new possibilities - might not be what you want but if it isn't, this phone isn't for you and you should look at the mid or low range product lines instead. Someone has to try to move forward.
 
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