Samsung’s 2012 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, was announced three weeks ago in London. It’s going to go on sale next week, on the 29th to be precise, but someone in Dubai apparently didn’t get the memo. Yousuf Lootah reached out to The Verge to tell them that he’s successfully purchased a Galaxy S III from a shop in the United Arab Emirates for for 2,499 dirhams, which translates to roughly $680. He doesn’t say anything about the device, so you’ll have to wait until other folks review the phone, but this is a good sign that everything is running smoothly. Yesterday one of our sources told us that Samsung would have some issues meeting their May 29th deadline, but we didn’t run that story because we wanted to verify it via a second source. It looks like we’re not going to have to do that since Yousuf got himself a device almost a full week before the launch, which means Samsung is firing on all cylinders.
So should you buy the Galaxy S III? That’s another question all together, one that’s hard to answer since it depends on your budget and what you’re willing to sacrifice in terms of size. For our money, we think that the $399 Samsung Galaxy Nexus from the Google Play Store is the bargain of the century. And since it runs stock Android, you’re going to get updates sent to that device faster than anything else out on the market. Regarding the HTC One X … the American version, the one with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, is much better than the international version, the one with the NVIDIA Tegra 3, but some folks just can’t stand Sense UI.
At the end of the day we know the Galaxy S III will break sales records, but we also recognize that a device with a 4.8 inch screen may not be for everyone. Expect more nuanced thoughts to go up as soon as we get our hands on one!