IDG News Service - Samsung plans to offer its Galaxy S III smartphones to consumers in the U.S. through five carriers beginning this month, the company said Monday, but the device will not run a quad-core processor as does the 3G version launched in Europe and India.
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular will start offering the phone, Samsung said, without disclosing exact pricing and retail availability which it said will be announced by the carriers in the coming weeks.
The company however said cellular services will start from US$199.
The Galaxy S III includes Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, with TouchWiz enhancements, running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and 2GB of internal RAM.
The dual-core processor offers speed and performance comparable to leading quad-core processors without sacrificing valuable battery life, Samsung said. The company had announced at its launch of the device in London last month that the device would have a quad-core 1.4GHz processor, which is based on the ARM Cortex A9.
The version of the Galaxy S III to be offered in the U.S. with a dual-core Snapdragon S4 is better optimized for networks in the country, said a spokeswoman for Samsung. "We get the same speeds because we are using (the) Krait version of the ARM architecture," she said. Krait is the codename for a new generation of CPUs used by Qualcomm, which it claims to outperform ARM CPUs on a core-to-core basis.
The device to be offered in the U.S. also features a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen display and is protected from cracks and scratches by Gorilla Glass 2.0 from Corning.
Galaxy S III is optimized for peak performance on the fastest 4G LTE and HSPA+ 42 networks in the U.S., Samsung said.
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com
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