Pictures purporting to show the as yet unannounced Samsung Galaxy S3 have emerged online, although many are sceptical about their validity, given the selection of slightly odd features they seem to showcase.
The shots, published on the XDA Developer’s site, imply that Samsung’s superphone will have a display which bends in the middle and will measure 4.6 inches across the diagonal.
Samsung has used curved screens on the Galaxy Nexus and 2010′s Nexus S, but these had much gentler arcs than the slightly ugly looking kink that is being touted as real by the source behind the image.
The display is also rumoured to be 3D-ready and feature an HD resolution of 1280×720. The former point would allow it to compete with the LG Optimus 3D and this year’s CX2, although it seems unlikely that Samsung will be pursuing the 3D market, given that, so far, mobile consumers have not shown any particular enthusiasm for this feature.
Given that there are questions over how glasses-free 3D would even function correctly on a curved display, these claims seem increasingly baseless.
The blurry images do seem to show a mobile phone with Samsung branding attached, but the presence of large physical buttons at the bottom of the screen, which seem to have play/pause and fast forward functions assigned to them, break from the button-free Android 4.0 ethos which should define the look and feel of the handset.
Given that Samsung announced last week that the Galaxy S3 will end up being officially unveiled later in 2012 and not at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) event later in February, it seems as though pranksters have taken the opportunity to create more improbable rumours about the handset.
About the only realistic details relate to the size of the display and its high definition resolution, but the rest can probably be dismissed as blue sky thinking by someone with some Photoshop skills.
Samsung will be looking forward to another good year in 2012, after results published last week suggest that it has managed to hold onto its position as the world’s second biggest mobile manufacturer in terms of sales.
While Nokia is still leading the way with a 26.6 per cent stake and sales of 113.5 million mobiles, Samsung closed in to take 22.8 per cent of the market, selling 97 million units in the process.
Although the iPhone is easily the most talked-about mobile on the planet, its premium price point means that Apple is only able to claim ownership of six per cent of the market for 2011, putting it quite a way behind Samsung and Nokia.
However, if you only look at the number of smartphones sold, then Apple is doing far better. It even managed to outstrip Samsung’s South Korean rival LG, selling 20 million more iPhone 4S models in the final three months of last year, than all of LG’s handsets put together, which does cast a shadow over LG’s ability to perform in 2012.
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