While a potential successor to the incredibly popular Samsung Galaxy S II, i.e. the Galaxy S III, is monopolizing our interest, the company just announced a new and reasonably well-specced mid-range phone. The Samsung Galaxy S Advance is a 4-inch 480 x 800 Super AMOLED screened device. It’s powered by a very capable 1GHz Exynos 4210 dual-core processor, 768MB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage with a 5-megapixel rear and 1.3-megapixel front cameras. It has HSPA 14.4Mbps connectivity and comes running Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface slapped on top and a full selection of Samsung apps.
Considering these specs, we are reminded of how fast technology moves in the mobile space, as the Galaxy S Advance would have been considered pretty high-end only a year ago. Visually, it bears all the typical design cues of the Galaxy family but also features a curved glass design. Looking at it sideways, there is an uncanny resemblance to the Galaxy Nexus. The device measures 123.2 x 63.0 x 9.69mm (4.9 x 2.5 x 0.38 inches) and weighs 120g (4.2 oz).
The Galaxy S Advance will start shipping in February and will be offered in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and China — no US release date yet. There is also no info on pricing but we would guess that it should cost slightly less than the current high-end devices.
Official press release:
Samsung offers style and power with GALAXY S Advance
January 30, 2012
Latest addition to Android-powered GALAXY portfolio delivers sleek curved design with Dual Core performance
SEOUL, Korea – January 30, 2012 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced the launch of the Samsung GALAXY S Advance. Designed for those who define themselves by the phone they carry, the GALAXY S Advance strikes a balance of style, power and performance. It will be available in Russia starting from February, and then be gradually rolled out in CIS, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Latin America and China.
“The GALAXY S Advance adds to the successful track record of the GALAXY smartphone range with a phone that combines power and style with all the versatility of Samsung’s Hub services,” said JK Shin, President of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.
Dual Core performance, curved design and Super AMOLED display
Powered by a dual core 1.0 GHz processor and HSPA 14.4 Mbps connectivity, the GALAXY S Advance has been built with power and connectivity in mind, delivering great versatility and a highly responsive user interface for easy multitasking. Application start-ups are faster with virtually no lag time, and the user experience is boosted with smoother screen transitions, faster image processing, and enhanced Web download and browsing performance.
The GALAXY S Advance’s curved glass design enhances handling of the phone and fits the user’s facial form easily and naturally. Its 4.0″ Super AMOLED display provides the stunning visuals users have come to expect of Samsung GALAXY smartphones, offering unparalleled color reproduction and ensuring that photos and videos captured with the device’s 5MP camera can be enjoyed with vivid clarity.
The Samsung user experience
Running on Android Gingerbread and featuring Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface, the GALAXY S Advance enables users to stay connected through the Samsung Hubs and ChatON services. Music Hub offers a full music store experience with access to over 11 million tracks and the ability to fully personalize users’ own music catalogues. Readers Hub offers access to over 2.3 million e-books, 3,500 magazine and 200 newspaper titles; while the hugely popular Game Hub offers access to thousands of catalogued games supplemented by gamer news feeds and news.
Samsung’s cross platform communication service, ChatON connects all phone users into a single community using phone numbers instead of usernames and passwords, provides aneasy instant messaging, group chatting and sharing of content in multiple formats-images, video, voice, contacts, calendar-to make messaging simpler and more intuitive than ever.
The GALAXY S Advance also features Find My Mobile, a unique lost-phone management system that ensures secure phone data encryption in case of phone loss, and that enables users to trace their lost phone directly via the Web or even delete the device’s data remotely.
UPDATE: The Galaxy S Advance has just been confirmed on Three UK, together with an intro video below.
