Amid huge public interest the Samsung Galaxy S3 (S III) was announced last week and its fair to say that this is one of the most highly anticipated phones of the year. However for some people who had been patiently waiting for the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD on AT&T there’s bad news as the arrival of the Galaxy S3 has buried the Skyrocket HD.
The first news of the Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD came at CES back in January with specs including a 4.6-inch HD Super AMOLED display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front-facing camera, 4G LTE connectivity and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Plenty of people were eager to snap up the Skyrocket HD when it finally appeared and in March we told how although there had been very little recent news on the Skyrocket HD, it had finally cleared the FCC meaning a release may not be too far away.
Sadly for those still waiting, the Skyrocket HD has now been cancelled following the official news of the Galaxy S3. Samsung’s Ryan Biden spoke of the dilemma and said that because the Galaxy S3 has a more advanced chipset and will also have a large HD display it was felt by Samsung and AT&T that there was no need for two such similar handsets to be released closely together.
As Phone Arena, sourced from The Verge points out, there was criticism when Verizon released similar handsets such as the Motorola Droid Bionic, Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx within a short space of time and so it does make a certain amount of sense. Nevertheless there are bound to be a few disappointed people about. Galaxy S3 specs include a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD display, 8-megapixel rear camera, 1.9-megapixel front-facing shooter, and runs on Android 4.0 ICS so you can see it has as much to offer, and more in some respects, as the Skyrocket HD.
There’s still a certain amount of confusion as to the processor for the US Galaxy S3. The international version of the Galaxy S3 has an Exynos quad-core processor but we know that the US Galaxy S3 will feature LTE connectivity. It has been thought then that it will have the Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor, which enables provision of LTE although in recent days we have seen reports that an US variant could have quad-core as well. Either way the Galaxy S3 seems to have plenty to offer for those who had been holding on for the Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD.
An exact release date for the Galaxy S3 in the US has not been announced yet although we do know that in the UK and Europe the release date is May 29. For the US Samsung has not confirmed all carriers yet and as far as a release date goes, Samsung only mentioned that it would be in the summer.
We’d like to hear from readers about this. Were you waiting for the Skyrocket HD? If so, is the Galaxy S3 your most likely option instead? Maybe you’re fed up that you waited so long for the Skyrocket HD on AT&T, only to find out that it is now cancelled? Let us know with your comments.