[tab name=’News’]
Samsung’s hotly anticipated quad-core Galaxy S3 smartphone has accumulated eye-watering pre-orders of 9 million, according to sources close to the tech giant.
With the handset expected to hit stores in Europe at the end of the month, it could become be the most pre-ordered handset in Android history. The numbers don’t actually come directly from Samsung themselves, but from Korea Economic Daily, who claim to have spoken to a Samsung official.
The figures revealed have come from over 100 worldwide carriers and means that Samsung’s Korean-based factory needs to be churning the handsets out at full capacity, which equates to 5 million handsets a month, in order to meet demand.
Samsung worked incredibly hard to avoid any handset shortages with last year’s S2, and it achieved this by staggering the release of the handset around the world. But this time the Korean tech giant plans a quicker worldwide release, and so will need to up its manufacturing so as to not create shortages.
The new S3 comes with some impressive specs and features: it’s packing a massive 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD Display, 1.4Ghz quad-core processor, 8-megapixel camera, a completely re-worked user interface utilising the best of Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich, new fangled NFC tech, S-beam, Pop-up-Play and Smart Stay.
With pre-order figures this high it may also make it even more likely that we’ll see a new iPhone 5 before the end of the year. Apple won’t want Samsung eating up too much of their smartphone marketshare.
All of the major UK operators are now offering the device for pre-order and we thought it was a good time to review the deals available on Samsung’s flagship smartphone. The operators are arranged in order of value and cost with the best deal being listed first.
Three
Three is offering the new handset for free if you signed up to 24 month contract, at £34 a month. This gets you in impressive 2,000 minutes, 5000 texts and unlimited mobile data – which is £7 cheaper than any other provider.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile are also offering the Samsung Galaxy S3 in both colour variants with the smartphone available free on a contract costing £41 a month. For your money you’ll get unlimited everything including minutes, texts and mobile data.
Vodafone
Vodafone are offering the Samsung Galaxy S3 on contracts starting at £26 a month, but in order to get the smartphone free you need to pay £41 a month which gets you 900 minutes, unlimited texts and 2GB of mobile data.
O2
You can also pre-order the Galaxy S3 from O2 where it’s available on contracts starting at £36 a month. Those looking to get the smartphone free will have to pay £46 a month which gets you unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB of mobile data.
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.
[/tab]
[end_tabset]