What appears to be the Samsung Galaxy S3 in disguise has appeared in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese website Tinhte
has obtained a handset that has specs similar to what we’d expect to
find in a new flagship Samsung phone but the chassis is clearly a dummy
one, meant to hide the styling of the final product to prevent just such
leaks giving the whole game away.
The handset is labelled as the
GT-i9300, which is the model number long since rumoured to be attached
to the Galaxy S3. That hardware consists of a 4.65in, 720 x 1280 pixel
Super HD AMOLED display, quad-core 1.4GHz processor and 8MP camera.
A tweaked version of the above photo showing quite how ‘engineering sample’ this version is.
While
the specs are largely in line with what we expected, there’s nothing
here that breaks the mould. As suspected the screen doesn’t have a
ridiculous 1080p resolution but that the processor only uses the older,
slower ARM9 architecture is a little surprising and the lack of a 12MP
camera is doubly so.
What the Samsung Galaxy S3 is actually expected to look like.
This version uses onscreen buttons (in reverse order, oddly enough) rather than the expected physical home
button, though there’s still a chance this could change with the final chassis design. This use of onscreen buttons explains why the Android settings only show a resolution of 720 x 1184, as the software effectively discounts these.
A video of the phone was also posted by Tinhte but it has now been made private. Thankfuilly Engadget captured a version of the video which you can find here.
So, disappointed by these specs? Satisfied but now waiting on the design? Let us know you thoughts in the comments.