Samsung Galaxy S III

The Samsung Galaxy S III (unofficially known as the Samsung Galaxy S3) is an Android smartphone developed and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Launched in 2012, it had sold more than 80 million units overall, making it the most sold phone in the S series. It is the third smartphone in the Samsung Galaxy S series.

It is distinguished from its predecessor by its larger and higher-resolution screen, higher storage options, a larger battery, and a video camera with stereo audio recording for a spatial effect on headphones and external speakers. While the picture and video resolutions of the camera stayed the same, its launching speed and shutter lag improved.

It has additional software features, expanded hardware, and a redesigned physique from its predecessor, the Galaxy S II, released the previous year. The "S III" employs an intelligent personal assistant (S Voice), eye-tracking ability, and increased storage. Although a wireless charging option was announced, it never came to fruition. However, there are third party kits which add support for Qi wireless charging. Depending on country, the smartphone comes with different processors and RAM capacity, and 4G LTE support. The device was launched with Android 4.0.4 "Ice Cream Sandwich", was updated to Android 4.3 "Jelly Bean", and can be updated to Android 4.4.2 "KitKat" on variants with 2 GB of RAM. The phone's successor, the Galaxy S4, was announced on 14 March 2013 and was released the following month.

Following an 18-month development phase, Samsung unveiled the S III on 3 May 2012. The device was released in 28 European and Middle Eastern countries on 29 May 2012, before being progressively released in other major markets in June 2012. Prior to release, 9 million pre-orders were placed by more than 100 carriers globally. The S III was released by approximately 300 carriers in nearly 150 countries at the end of July 2012. More than 20 million units of the S III were sold within the first 100 days of release and more than 50 million until April 2013.

The S III was well-received commercially and critically, with some technology commentators touting it as the "iPhone killer". In September 2012, TechRadar ranked it as the No. 1 handset in its constantly updated list of the 20 best mobile phones, while Stuff magazine likewise ranked it at No. 1 in its list of 10 best smartphones in May 2012. The handset also won the "European Mobile Phone of 2012–13" award from the European Imaging and Sound Association, as well as T3 magazine's "Phone of the Year" award for 2012. It played a major role in boosting Samsung's record operating profit during the second quarter of 2012. As of November 2012^[update], the S III is part of a high-profile lawsuit between Samsung and Apple. In November 2012, research firm Strategy Analytics announced that the S III had overtaken Apple's iPhone 4S to become the world's best-selling smartphone model in Q3 2012. Because of overwhelming demand and a manufacturing problem with the blue variant of the phone, there was an extensive shortage of the S III, especially in the United States.

The Samsung Galaxy S III was succeeded as the series flagship by the Samsung Galaxy S4 in April 2013. In April 2014, following the release of its new flagship, the Galaxy S5, Samsung released a refreshed version called the "Galaxy S3 Neo", which has a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked either at 1.2 or 1.4 GHz. It has 1.5 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage and ships with Android 4.4.4 "KitKat" as the only version of Android available.

Design work on the S III started in late 2010 under the supervision of Chang Dong-hoon, Samsung's vice president and Head of the Design Group of Samsung Electronics. From the start, the design group concentrated on a trend which Samsung dubs "organic", which suggests that a prospective design should reflect natural elements such as the flow of water and wind. Some of the results of this design were the curved outline of the phone and its home screen's "Water Lux" effect, where taps and slides produce water ripples.

Throughout the eighteen-month design process, Samsung implemented stringent security measures and procedures to maintain secrecy of the eventual design until its launch. Designers worked on three prototypes concurrently while regarding each of them as the final product. Doing so required a constant duplication of effort, as they had to repeat the same process for all three prototypes. The prototypes, of which taking photos was forbidden, were locked in a separate laboratory, accessible only by core designers. They were transported by trusted company employees, instead of third-party couriers. "Because we were only permitted to see the products and others weren't," explained Principal Engineer Lee Byung-Joon, "we couldn't send pictures or drawings. We had to explain the Galaxy S III with all sorts of words." Despite such security measures, specifications of one of the three units were leaked by Vietnamese Web site Tinhte, although it was not the selected design.