Samsung Galaxy S III - dual-core only for the US?

The launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S III in London later this week will see the announcement of one of the year’s most greatly anticipated new devices. Throughout the long wait for the new handset, we’ve seen alleged leaks, wild rumours, and plenty of hype from the Samsung marketing machine.

A few days ago, we got our very first real taste of what the new Galaxy will bring, when Samsung announced its new Exynos 4 Quad processor, a quad-core chip running at a clock speed of 1.4GHz. The company promised that the new processor will comfortably handle 1080p video recording and playback at 30fps, along with a HDMI 1.4 interface and improved power consumption over its predecessor. Mouth-watering indeed.

But it looks like it’s not all good news for prospective buyers of the Galaxy S III in the US. SlashGear reports that The Korea Times spoke to a Samsung executive, who revealed that the American version of the handset will have to make do with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon, with the Exynos 4 Quad only being made available on versions sold outside of the United States. The executive, who wished to remain anonymous, stated:

Samsung plans to release its Galaxy S III smartphone according to different specifications and different markets. For European consumers, it will use 3G and the company’s own quad-core mobile APs, while its own solution that combines LTE, 3G and quad-core mobile APs will be used for the Korean version. But only in the United States will Samsung use Qualcomm chips."

If you’re feeling a strange sense of déjà vu, you’re not alone – a similar situation arose with HTC’s One X, which ended up with a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor in the US, rather than the quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor offered internationally. The reason given in the case of the One X was compatibility issues between the quad-core Tegra 3 and 4G LTE networks, but it’s unclear if the same issue is present with the Exynos 4 Quad, or if other factors might be at play.

> Check out our comprehensive review of the HTC One X (Tegra 3)