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  • Impulses - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Are they reacting to LG (doubtful) or is it just some sort of concession in lieu of the quad Exynos (tho AFAIK Krait has little to envy outside of the GPU).
  • metafor - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Likely has to do with the LTE/HSPA+ modem, just like with the GS2.
  • phatboye - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    So they aren't getting these new SGS3s or the HTC One X. Epix fail Verizon, epic fail.
  • ssddaydream - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    How did you deduce that Verizon won't be getting a GS3 variant?
  • Impulses - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Canada's GSM variants have no bearing on a CDMA variant destined for Sprint/VZW... It's not like anything has been officially announced for the US anyway.
  • phatboye - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Ok that sounds better. I was under the impression that this article was basically stating otherwise. Thanks for clearing that up.
  • S3xycaneye - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 or the Exynos 4412? Not in multi threaded test but in general use.
  • amdwilliam1985 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    In terms of speed, I think it'll be fine with either.
    My SGS2 is plenty fast already with gingerbread, SGS3 will be faster with ICS.

    I'll pick the one that has better battery, if battery life are the same(or insignificant differences) then I'll go for the quad-core for the sake of "future proof".
  • icrf - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    I'm personally more interested in Krait for that reason, but I don't have hard numbers to back it up. I'd rather have two faster cores than four slower ones. I don't think smart phone usage models are so threaded to need more than two cores at the moment.
  • dgingeri - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Well, I can tell you, from experience with my HTC One S, the Krait is darn fast. I have no regrets not waiting on the SGS3, even if mine has a lower res screen and "only" a dual core chip. It's a darn good phone.
  • sprockkets - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link

    Like the screen? I have the predecessor the sensation, and while the new one is in some ways has a snappier, higher refresh rate (at least it seems that way), I didn't like the pentile pattern.

    That and no removable batt and no sd card meant no upgrade for now. Very thin though :)
  • ltcommanderdata - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    One issue about these being the eventual US variants is that while dual Krait may yield competitive CPU performance to quad Cortex A9, the GPU performance is noticeably less. Now that Samsung has the fastest smartphone GPU, you'd think they'd want to have that as a feature when launching in the US.
  • coldpower27 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Right now you have to pick, if you want LTE support your going to sacrifice the Mali-400, if you stay on 3G then you get the Exynos 4412.

    You can't have both yet.
  • snoozemode - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    There are no products using 4412.
  • CoreDuo - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    The Exynos 4 Quad *is* the 4412.
  • simno073 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    seriously, it can see the fact of having different characteristics for the same name fair to the customer.
  • snoozemode - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Exynos 4412 is a dual-core chipset, same as in Galaxy S2 but manufactured in 32nm. It was later renamed to Exynos 4 Dual 32nm.

    Source: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconduct...
  • matty123 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    The article you linked to only talks about the exynos 4212 not the 4412 and is almost a year old.

    The phone has been confirmed to have four cores by multiple users and independent reviewers.

    Samsung also confirmed at the unveiling event that it would have a quad core processor and that it would be the exynos 4412
  • snoozemode - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    I made a mistake there for sure. But there's no official information about 4412 to be found. It is named Exynos 4 Quad only.
  • zorxd - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    it got renamed. The original name was Exynos 4412. Just like the Hummingbird was renamed Exynos 3110 or something like that.
  • Skiddywinks - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Huh, I wonder what the reason for this is. So that they can market "Look! You may only get half as many cores, but you get twice as much RAM!" to the masses?

    Is 2GB even necessary at the moment?
  • matty123 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    My Galaxy S2 {international version} uses about 400-500 mb RAM while idling on ICS 4.0.3 official ROM so I would say it can't hurt to have more RAM especially with jelly bean just around the corner.
  • Skiddywinks - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Huh, that sounds quite terrible to me. If things are really that bad then I don't know how eager I am to get the S3 (UK) anymore...

    When is there going to be a review up on Anand for either/both version? Have I missed them saying they are working on one, or do they not even have handsets in at the moment?
  • duffman55 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Is that after a fresh restart? Because applications that can be instantly kicked out of memory to make room for new applications don't really count. My 4th gen iPhone usually has about 5-15 MB of free memory.
  • matty123 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    No that's just standard I havn't rebooted my phone now in 562 hours according to the timer...

    However I do have about 10 widgets running on the homescreen, sync across google apps, samsung apps, amazon apps exct. running in the backround, syncing for weather updates, stock prices, sports scores. I also have about ten or so apps that I set to start up with the phone and I use a different launcher.

    I think the OP is misunderstanding I am saying the performance is quite brilliant but that more RAM certainly can't hurt, jelly bean will probably be even more RAM hungry than current versions of ICS so having more RAM is good but certainly not needed,

    I should also add I don't experience lag or any other signs of the phone running out of RAM, if the phone needs RAM it closes uneeded applications quite efficiently, even when running RAM hungry applications like Fpse for playstation emulation or crome beta I don't need more RAM, I am just pointing out it can;t hurt.
  • 3DoubleD - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    I'm loving this Canadian news coverage on Anandtech! Keep it up! There is this story, and then the other day in an SSD article they were talking about Canada Computers. Never thought I'd see the day, we're on the map!

    Brian, I can tell you follow Mobile Syrup (almost) as religiously as I do.
  • coldpower27 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Yeah it's great to be mentioned. :)
  • Devo2007 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Now if only they can get things set up so Canadians can enter their contests. :)
  • Skiddywinks - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    AND EUROPE.

    Don't forget Europe...
  • RupertDBear - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link

    Can you just ffffff the right off. This is one of the few pure tech sites left we have left. PLEASE GET BACK on topic. Oh, was I shouting? This about phone tech, not about national insecurities. "I'm so glad Oprah mentioned my neighborhood" kinda crap has no place here. BTW I have lived in both countries and I find precious little between the bright people of both countries, as for the idiots, well, the US is larger...
  • Paulman - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link

    Aww, come on Rupert, at least he was being positive :P
  • steven75 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Wow, I didn't realize Android fragmentation was so bad that even a single model of a phone by one manufacturer gets fragmented into different sub-versions. Pretty incredible, really.
  • steven75 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    An entirely different processor and amount of RAM is a pretty major change as opposed to just antennas (almost unavoidable) and storage capacities.
  • Mbonus - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Well sort of the current nature of the beast if you battery optimized 4g
  • Impulses - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link

    What you call fragmentation others view as variety or choice... /shrug The OS is purpose built to run on a variety of hardware, just like another OS that did pretty well on PCs. :p At the end of the day the experience is still similar across these model variants and every market gets a version that suits them.

    With Apple's model (or even WP's) you just end up waiting longer for certain headlining hardware updates... (no 4G until multiple carriers can milk it for instance, and/or unto the current form factor can support it without a big impact to battery life) Neither is a perfect approach, it's up to each consumer to choose what suits them.
  • mwarner1 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link

    Well, this is a first for me - I am actually slightly envious of the Canadian/US versions of a phone!

    Being in the UK I have always been glad that I have access to International variants of phones, due to the lack of carrier branding, better designs, faster time-to-market, more frequent firmware updates and better developer support.

    This time, however, I am a little jealous as the hardware is, in my opinion, better for the American versions. Sure, the GPU is a little slower, but this is largely irrelevant on Android (not having fixed hardware platforms, like iOS devices, means that software will more likely be written to the lowest common denominator). 2GB is more important than the GPU for me. Also Krait is generally faster than Quad A9 - certainly on the more common lightly threaded workloads!
  • g0d5hand - Saturday, June 2, 2012 - link

    So I am not very tech savy but am following the s3 for like 2 months. I live in albverta and am no longer on contract and am tryingto decide on which version of phone to choose from and which provider to go with.
    I have some questions if anyone can answer. Of the three different versions on here which is the most flexible to change of carriers? I might spend a few months in germany soon and would get a plan there and also I might want to switch providers. I am looking at wind because they are cheeper and I dont like telus, dont know why just dont. and all the plans I see for the LTE providers are like 65-80 dollars a month for up to 1gb of data a month. this seems like crap.

    Basically trying to figure out what version to get out off all the canadian veersions or the international version.
  • lobosan - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link

    Hi everyone, I hope someone can help me

    I'm in doubt about if I'm gonna be able to use a samsung galaxy S3 SGH-iT999 outside of canada??, even if I unlock the phone.

    Because I'm studying here for 6 months, but after that I'm planning to return to my country where is used the model GT-I9300

    Thanks in advance for any information

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