Samsung launches Galaxy S III to take on the iPhone
by Steve Gardner, ITV News producer
Samsung, recently crowned the world’s largest handset maker, has unveiled its latest flagship smartphone.
Available in the UK from May 29th, the Samsung Galaxy S III will take on the likes of the iPhone 4S, the HTC One X, the Sony Xperia Arc and the Blackberry Bold 9900.
Running on Samsung’s new quad-core processor, it packs more computing power than many consumer laptops.
The ‘Exynos 4 Quad’ machine also promises to use 20% less battery power than its predecessor.
The launch attracted plenty of media attention and technology fans – although perhaps not the same levels of hysteria seen at similar events for Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices.
According to March 2012 data from ComScore, 27.2 million Britons own a smartphone.
The same set of figures revealed that 4 in 10 of those handsets ran on Google’s Android operating system (as opposed to Apple’s iOS, Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS and BlackBerry’s OS).
The new Samsung Galaxy S III uses Android 4.0 (known as Ice Cream Sandwich), the latest version of Google's mobile operating system.
The phone's new features include:
- Wireless charging via a touching dock;
- Face recognition to sort your photos by the friends who appear in them;
- A 'best photo' feature, which shoots a burst of eight photos and then suggests the best one;
- Lag-less image capture - the phone promises to take your photo as soon as you press the command;
- Eye scanning - the Galaxy tracks your eye movement so it doesn't switch off its screen whilst you're reading;
- Voice recognition - it should recognise your own voice and 'wake up' on your command;
- Near field communication (NFC) to transfer large files quickly between devices in close proximity;
- A large (4.8 inch) high definition (1280 x 720 pixels) display;
- A more rounded design than its predecessor - Samsung says it's inspired by "nature, water" and, er, "pebbles."
