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Samsung Galaxy S III Full Specs “Revealed” – Quad-Core, 1080p Display and Ceramic Body [Rumor]

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Okay, you know to be more than a little wary whenever you read “BGR exclusive,” but given I’m such a gossip/rumor whore, I’ll go ahead and throw it out there, and if you think it stinks, you can throw it right back. Seems the Samsung Galaxy S III specs have all but been leaked, spilling out like rainbow vomit onto the floor of the interwebs. Of course nothings been confirmed but apparently Samsung is planning for a simultaneous global launch of the SGSIII and here’s what we could be looking at in terms of specs:

  • 1.5GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor
  • 4.8-inch “full HD” 1080p resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio display
  • A 2-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel rear camera
  • Ceramic case
  • 4G LTE
  • Android 4.0

To be fair, more than half of this stuff is pretty much a given. 4G LTE? Well, it’s not going to launch with yesteryear’s radios. Android 4.0? I’d sure hope so. 8MP rear/2MP front facing cameras sounds reasonable as well. I think HTC proved that we don’t need more megapixels, just better sensors. I could be a smartass and “confirm” a few more specs as well like a 3.5mm headset jack and micro USB/MHL port, but I think those are givens as well.

What I found most interesting is the “ceramic body.” Not sure exactly what they’re getting at there, but maybe it has to do with a ceramic coating and not a phone necessarily made of ceramic? My screen cracking from a sudden drop is enough to stress over without having to worry about my whole phone shattering to bits. (Ninja edit: Apparently there’s a new kind of space age/military grade ceramic that’s not only lighter but stronger than steel which could give Samsung the build quality lacking from current Galaxy devices)

What really throws me for a loop is the “report” that the device will launch with a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and not Samsung’s upcoming new and improved 1.5GHz dual-core processor. The new dual-cores were shown off in November, followed by shipping in Spring. If Samsung is barely previewing their quad-cores now, I wouldn’t expect them to ship in devices til late this year or early next. But I guess anything can happen if Samsung wants to stay competitive.

Oh, and 1080p display? Is that even possible right now? More than that, how necessary is that? I mean, I’m all for excessive specs. I’ll take what I can get. But this sounds more like an Android fanboy’s wet dream than real world specs. On second, outputting games or movies via HDMI to a 1080p television could have its perks.

What do you guys think? Hoop dreams? Or could this really be the spec sheet for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III superphone?

 

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

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78 Comments

  1. It does sound like a wet dream.  1080P is a bit overkill for such a small display, unless you’re holding it a half-inch from your eye.

    As far as the cores go, I hope that they go with the quad-core over the dual.  more apps are being multi-threaded, and there is a lot of multitasking going on today.  more, slower cores would more than likely give better performance then fewer faster cores.

    1. Yeah, I doubt they would be able push more than twice as many pixels in the same area in such a short time.

      And as far as the quad core thing goes I kind of disagree.
      They should go with quad cores when dual cores are being bottlenecked, but that clearly isn’t the case.

      1. don’t be so silly, there’s many reasons to go to quad cores such as power optimization among others. This isn’t about bottleneck but is also about being competitive with intel.

        They are indeed able to make 1080p displays, but the question is “at what cost?” – interface scaling and other issues will still be present.

        1. the new s4’s show that a dual core can still beat a quad core.. its more than a numbers game its gate and channels and clock speed and size… nvidia will either catch up with their own 28nm or try and leap frog it. either way 28nm is the thing to beat right now.. not adding cores

  2. Gee, BGR, do you think a 2012 phone will have those specs? Can you cite your rumor source, or are you just throwing obvious darts at a non-moving target three inches away? That site is as bad as Engadget, biased, uninformed, a day-late and common sense short.

    That said, I was hoping Samsung would put the 5250 cpu in the S3 and not the 4412, even if it takes another 2-3 months to get it out the door. The other specs are a given, but yeah, 1080p? I doubt it for the screen — no one would need or use that. For the camera, resolution, fps, HD, etc. — yes, that makes sense. I guess we will find out in a month when they hold their presser. In the meantime, don’t patronize BGR.

    1. I’m not sure, but I think the 5250 is more reserved for tablets than phones, unless Samsung have come up with some power saving features of course.

  3. 1080p, while sounding impressive, is kind of pointless.  The human eye can only see so much detail.  Anything above 320 – 350 dpi is a waste of pixels.  I would rather have a display with 320 dpi than one with 450 dpi that costs more.  But at the same price and quality of all the other specs (color reproduction, black levels, etc), obviously the more pixels the better.

    1. What is that on your head?

  4. Well, the HTC One X is quad core, right?  So it wouldn’t be too surprising if the next Galaxy S is quad as well.

    1080 sounds like a stretch, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they referred whatever their display is as “equivalent to 1080” because of the small screen size.

    Ceramic?  I hope I’m picturing that wrong.

  5. I believe ceramic is pretty strong or the ceramic they would use is.  I’ve read that ceramic is hard but not tough. Ceramic will not scratch or dent but if you drop it on a hard surface it will shatter. Actually, for skateboards the most long lasting bearings are ceramic bearings(very expensive) so I believe that they may have it down to where it won’t shatter. Ceramic bearings will never wear out. I’m assuming ceramic will not block or interfere with radio signals as well. Does anyone have any current information on ceramics and it’s durability.

  6. Some of that sounds like a pipe dream. Ceramics can be very strong, but the cost of good n pretty ceramic is expensive. 1080p is also feasible, but would also be very expensive, even at their large scale of production. But a man can dream.

  7. Fuckin hilarious!, the ceramic part sounds dumb, would prefer aluminum or kevlar, and for that person who said the screens small, really?, a 4.8 inch screen small?

    1. Aluminum can dent and look ugly, Kevlar would be my choice.

      1. I wonder how well a metallic glass would work for phones.

    2.  Gee Michael, you should probably do some reading. Did you see the new HTC One series with their ceramic backs? It’s made by blasting aluminum with plasma and the high temp creates a rough ceramic that is lightweight, strong and feels great. NASA is the one that originated the idea and its used on the Shuttle. Ultra strong. So don’t say the ceramic part sounds dumb cause that sort of makes you look dumb. Hold off on the comments until you see or hold one, then complain if you’d like. But until then, the consensus is the HTC’s ceramic backs are amazing. I’ll bet if Sammy uses one, it will be as well.

  8. I rarely ever believe BGR anymore, especially after the whole “Sprint iPhone 5 Exclusive” “report”. I only ever read that site to laugh at the comments section full of 12-year-old trolls. Now that comments aren’t really that entertaining anymore, it’s not even bookmarked.

  9. nothing about the battery life haha.

  10. Ceramic no! 1080p no! Quad core yes!!! Simultaneous release all over the world YES!!!

    1. I’d say simultaneous release is the most likely thing NOT to come true.  This thing will hit the states 6 months after the rest of the world, just in time for the next Nexus to trump it.

  11. That sounds legit…as Galaxy S phones are more Nexus-like than actual Nexus phones…Galaxy S line pushes envelope and then Nexus line builds on it. When the S1 and S2 launched they were eye popping….then when nexus comes out everyone wanted more

  12. The only gripe i have is the ceramic body. Why follow Apple and make a body that breaks easy (iPhone uses glass body) when instead you can make a durable body from aluminum or Carbon, or Kevlar. Just doesn’t make sense….

    1. The ceramic is supposedly 4 times stronger than steel.

      1. Ceramic cracks under pressure. Steel and aluminum bend. Which would you rather have….

        1. If it’s good enough for NASA to put on a shuttle to blast through our atmosphere and into outer space,  its probably good enough for a phone.

          1. They don’t crash land a NASA Shuttle, because the Ceramic would fall apart. It is simply the nature of Ceramic. Yes it takes extreme heat, but because it IS heat tolerant, It cannot take side force, and cracks. Every material out there has a downside. Ceramic is not the answer for phones consumers always drop their phones. Now i understand that you plan to re-enter the atmosphere sitting on your Galaxy S3, but if you drop it, it will crack 99.9% of the time. Nuff said.

          2. They don’t crash land a NASA Shuttle, because the Ceramic would fall apart. It is simply the nature of Ceramic. Yes it takes extreme heat, but because it IS heat tolerant, It cannot take side force, and cracks. Every material out there has a downside. Ceramic is not the answer for phones consumers always drop their phones. Now i understand that you plan to re-enter the atmosphere sitting on your Galaxy S3, but if you drop it, it will crack 99.9% of the time. Nuff said.

        2. yeah the only thing that does not crack under pressure is what ….dimond? look at these watches….same watch in steel cost 200, the one in ceramic, over 1g……and its MUCH stronger…. :-) 

          steel
          http://www.amazon.com/Nixon-Player-Watch-Matte-Gunmetal/dp/B004ZV07SU

          ceramic
          http://www.amazon.com/Nixon-Ceramic-Player-Analog-Watch/dp/B0029ZI9KM/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1330362645&sr=1-1-catcorr

          these are NOT the ceramic pots you made in grade school my friend….

          “Nixon’s Ceramic Player Watch has a hardness that’s four times that of stainless steel, meaning this style won’t get the bumps and bruises that usually damage your watches”

          4x strength of steel…i think samsung will do it right…but haters gonna hate

          1. I can provide a link for you too:

            http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989Natur.339..130K

            Also, I own an LTE-GN, i personally LOVE Samsung phones. But Ceramic is not the answer.

          2. mate, I think you trying to be right at the cost of informed comments. There are MANY kinds of ceramic, some of which are used for Ballistic vests and armour for tanks… not all ceramic is like a tea cup or a toilet seat. I jumped to the same conclusion when I first saw the word ceramic.

          3. These guys have too much faith in Samsung thinking they will use Space Grade Ceramic in a phone. There has not been an official release, so it is not even known if they will even use ceramic, but from Samsung’s standpoint, why use a $300 shell, when you can build the exact same one from aluminum for $50. OEM’ care about profits, not durability of phones.

          4. @nightscout13:disqus Because it’s all about bragging rights to Sammy. There’s a certain appeal to them to produce the strongest, lightest phone in the world… 

          5. LOL If you’ve been paying attention to samsung’s release map, they are too focused on releasing new items every 2 months, instead of building 1 solid device. Droid Charge FAIL. Samsung Continuum FAIL. All Sammy WP7 FAIL. Crap phones. And even the Galaxy Nexus is FAIL because of the easily scratched screen. I have a GN, and i hate it for the fact that screen is fragile. within 2 days of being in my pocket, the screen had over 10 scratches. FAIL.

    2. Ceramic is the hardest man-made substance on Earth. It’s stronger than steel and iron. In fact, the only thing stronger is diamond. And to the other poster who said ceramic cracks under pressure… uh, you will never be able to apply that kind of pressure, nor will you encounter anything in your lifetime capable of applying that much pressure. Nice try. Try again.

      1. LOL, do you think Samsung will use the same type of NASA Ceramic that costs millions? NO. Samsung will use the same ceramic toilets are made of.

        1. But… aren’t toilets made out of Porcelain, not Ceramic?

          1. Actually, There are different material’s used for toilets. Ceramic, porcelain, Steel, Aluminum.

        2. lol

  13. All those specs except RAM? SHOULD be 2GB but I am not holding my breath. These fanboys aren’t dreaming, they’re just looking for the future to come quicker…DREAMING would be optical zoom and 60fps 1080 capture. Get a legitimate camera company to scale down optical zoom to fit in a 10mm scale. Get Bose to design the acoustics of the speaker. Stick a Sammy pico projector in front. Give it IR capability for true remote control. Put in a hardware FM receiver. While you’re at it, an FM transmitter as well for those who can’t BT or 3.5mm. Then you’re talking.

    1. The HTC OneX does 1080p 60fps

      but TRUE IR would be great.

  14. You forgot to mention it will be available exclusively on Sprint.

  15. I think that spec-wise, we’re capped out until someone starts doing something about battery life. Super thin, multi-core, 4.5″+ displays, 1080p, super fast/high-res cameras, LTE, etc…. that’s all fine and good, but when I have to make sure that I don’t stray too far from a power source, or limit the amount of time I spend using my phone, what’s the point??? Battery life will be the key driver when determining which phone I upgrade to next. 

  16. Samsung won’t use too let grade ceramic nor will they use space shuttle grade ceramic but probably something in between. Ceramic is a very broad terms race cars use ceramic brakes and I dropped one of these rotors, nit a scratch and they are much heavier than a 120g smartphone, so I am nit worried about that.

  17. 1080p? No way. Also, ceramic body? Why? 

  18. Junk, and lies.

  19. Anyone else HATE how it looks?

    1. Concept. Nobody knows what it will look like yet. =p

  20. 1080 is just insulting the makers of 720p phones out there. It’s like saying those in Samsung has Super Powers..! Galaxy S2 was a killer – agreed. But, apart from that Samsung doesn’t have one sensible offering. Twice Lucky..?? I doubt it.
    Hush….., I hope they aren’t ;)

  21. I hope the phone dimensions are smaller than the Massive HTC one x. A xenon flash and larger camera sensor please

  22. Loving the screen on my Rezound – its pretty freakin’ great – 720 screen (342 dpi) — can’t see (no pun intended) pushing to 1080 – you can only see so much.

  23. “I think HTC proved that we don’t need more megapixels, just better sensors.”

    Have you already forgotten of their introduction of their Windows Phone with 16 (SIXTEEN) unnecessary Megapixels??

  24. I would rather have 16 unnecessary than 5 sub par..

  25. Ugh.. That ugly thumb pad.. Hopefully the US version will not have it, like usual. 

    1. It’s an artist’s conceptual image. A mockup. Not real. The leak was the specs. 

  26. 1080p foresure, quad core forsure.  Galaxy Nexus is dual core and 720p, which is a sammy phone.  They have to best that.  They have to best their recent flaship phone the galaxy S II.  So yes, upping display, upping cpu seems like a no brainer.  I dont think any phones are slowing or lagging due to the dual 1.2 or 1.5 ghz cpu isnt fast enough.  I think there isnt enough Software devs out there making cool software that takes advantage of the hardware.  Very few things push the hardware as much as a game, and there aint many good games that give the GPU/CPU a workout.  

  27. i dont want the 4412 I WANT THE 5450 quadcore 2 ghz a15 (actual processor)

  28. I hope it doesn’t have that bump on the bottom, personal preference but I h8 the way it looks.  And agreed,, no need for 1080p, Def, want Quad Core,, Sure it’s going to be Awesome!!  hope it’s coming to Verizon. 

  29. I came 15x and i have the note

  30. 1080p is silly, will hopefully never show up on mobile phones. Will just drain battery more than 720p and give nothing in terms of display quality since the human eye can’t tell the difference.

  31. It would be a nice surprise if the S III had an S pen! That would probably convince me to sacrifice some of the (let’s face it, ample) screen size of the Note for an S III.

  32. Samsung must be doing something right with there quad-core doing 4g LTE.  Why isn’t the  HTC one X with quad-core doing 4g LTE.

  33. If you google for the “world’s smallest 1080p display” guess what you find? 4.8″ is the current record holder (from a year ago even), but it doesn’t make sense to put that in a phone (yet), because of the insane cost, the increased CPU/GPU required to push the pixels, and the fact that 458dpi is practically indistinguishable from the 300-ish dpi of 720p.

    We’ll only move to 1080p once the tiny benefit is greater than the cost.

    1. Only reason I could find for wanting a 1080p display is for outputting on a 1080p television. Playing games like Shadowgun would look SAWEET. =)

  34. WATER-PROOFING by Liquipel or HzO should be one of the features of S III.

  35. Interesting…

  36. Once I get my hands on this phone I won’t buy another one for years!!!”

    1. Or until the next big thing hits like icosacore (20 cores muhahahaha)

  37. WOULD BUY, I hope thats available when I’m due for an upgrade.

  38. I’m all wet. ..from drooling on myself

  39. It’s either this or the next Nexus comes out.

  40. Samsung should make this phone in a 4″ screen too, for those of us that prefer smaller screen but powerful specs.

  41. I have faith with samsung.  Everybody rags on samsung about their build quality, however their phones can take much more beating that almost every other phone on the market.  Sure, the batter cover pops off when dropped, and the battery may fly out, but I would rather have that then it shatter like some other phones… i-ahem-phone.  Samsung would not release a ceramic phone if it were that easy to break.

  42. See, it’s stuff like that this that really makes me want to hold out for the next Nexus.  These specs really set the bar high for technology now.  That said, I can assume that whoever produces the next Nexus will use this as a starting point, and it’ll hit with Jelly Bean.  It may very well be worth waiting the 9 months to see it.  In the meantime, The GSB might have to hold my cravings.

  43. A stick figure puking rainbows?  He must have spent the weekend in the Castro Distict. :D

    1. it looks like me on one of my night outings lol

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