Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date 2012: Countdown Results In Unscramble
Samsung was reportedly going to unveil its third generation Galaxy S smartphone, the Galaxy S3, on Monday, April 23 at 7 a.m. On Sunday, Samsung Mobile's twitter account made a mysterious announcement: "Destination: tgeltaayehxnx." If you added a ".com" to the end of that anagram for "The Next Galaxy," you landed on a Samsung Mobile website an ominous countdown clock. Turns out the countdown clock led to an unscramble, which led you to a website with teaser videos. Courtesy

Verizon Wireless will be offering the Samsung Galaxy S3 once the smartphone hit market on May 3, reports BGR.

The latest news is a relief for Samsung fans who are presently on the Verizon as they missed out on the Galaxy S2 when it was released last year, instead settled for the Nexus option.

Galaxy Nexus, however, is a huge hit among the Samsung lovers but chances are greater that the Galaxy S3 with its 4.7-inch AMOLED screen with a display resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, Exynos 4412 (a quad-core system-on-a-chip made with four Cortex A9 processors running at 1.5 GHz), Android's Ice Cream Sandwich and a whooping 12 megapixel camera will prove to be the biggest hit this year, surpassing the sales figures of Galaxy S2 and Nexus in coming days.

But will the road for winning the title of Best Android Smartphone will be easy for the fabled next generation Galaxy S phone? Check out the list of existing smartphones which are already ruling the Verizon chart of the best phones and also see the list of upcoming smartphones that are gearing up to give the Samsung phone a tough battle.

List of Existing Top Smartphones on Verizon

Motorola Razr Maxx

Motorola Droid Razr Maxx was released for Verizon Wireless at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this year. The slim and attractive phone, which is considered as the overachiever of the Razr family, sports a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 pixels Super AMOLED Advanced capacitive touch-screen.

It has a dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 processor with a Texas Instruments' OMAP 4430 Chipset and PowerVR SGX540 GPU and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. The phone also touts an 8 megapixel LED flash rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture capabilities and an additional 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video chatting. While its powerful multimedia features and tight security features along with the 3,300 mAh battery give the phone edge over any other Android phones, lack of Ice Cream Sandwich and non-removal battery is disappointing.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Samsung's Galaxy Nexus was the first US smartphone to marry Android's ICS! And, that indeed gives this phone a superlative leap against all the existing Verizon smartphones.

With AMOLED HD-enabled 4.65-inch display, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 chipset, PowerVR SGX540 GPU with 1GB RAM, a 5 megapixel rear camera, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, 16GB of storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, NFC and a 1,750 mAh battery, the Galaxy Nexus is perhaps everything that you might want in your smartphone. But while Nexus is known for its beautiful screen and excellent internal performance, lack of Google Wallet and other popular ICS features is a major turn-off.

HTC Rezound

With 4.3-inch 720p HD display, S-LCD capacitive touchscreen, a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8660 processor, Adreno 220 GPU, 1GB of RAM, an 8MP rear camera with 1080p video capture and a 2MP front-facing snapper, 16GB of internal storage and 16GB microSD card, integrated Beats Audio and Verizon's 4G/LTE speeds, Rezound is HTC's one of the best bets.

However, the absence of ICS and its thickness and heft built are some of the disadvantages.

Upcoming Smartphones on Verizon

iPhone 5

Just like its predecessor, iPhone 4S, Apple's next iPhone is also expected to come on the Verizon network.

While all the features of the phone are still rumored, it is expected that the next generation Apple iPhone will come with a 4-inch Retina display with 16:9 Aspect Ratio and will feature a unibody design. The phone is also expected to pack in A6 or a variation of the A5X's S5L8945X architecture processor, 1GB RAM, iOS 6 operating system, 3D GUI, 3D camera, NFC feature and iWallet app.

Motorola Droid Razr HD

Motorola knows that their hero is Razr and thus is gearing up to extend its family by launching another smartphone Droid Razr HD.

Just as the name suggests, the newest Moto flick will come with an HD display with 720p. And, report suggests that the phone will bring the latest Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.3 with a dual-core 1.2GHz OMAP 4430 processor from Texas Instruments and most probably a 16GB with a microSD card slot to expand by 32GB, 13 megapixel camera with a 5mm focal length and f2.4 aperture.

In addition, the latest Moto phone will feature LTE technology for faster speeds.

HTC 'Phablet' (Unnamed)

If rumors are to be believed, Samsung should really prep to face an upcoming HTC phone that not only will give a tough competition to Galaxy S3 but the company's monster-sized Note too.

According to a BGR report, HTC is planning to launch a Samsung Galaxy Note competitor on the Verizon Wireless network. The phone will feature a 5-inch display with 1080p HD resolution, which is a non-Pentile variant, while a quad-core Krait processor, Snapdragon chipset and an Adreno 320 GPU will power it and HTC Scribe technology with support for stylus.