Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date 2012: Unveiling Countdown Begins For Monday, April 23 [PHOTOS + VIDEO] [UPDATED]

By Dave Smith | April 22 2012 6:24 PM

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Design and Features

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Top of Screen

The Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone is said to feature a 4.6-inch AMOLED display with a 720 x 1184 resolution, a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor, an 8-megapixel camera, 1 GB of RAM, an NFC chip, 16 GB of storage plus micro SD capabilities. This is a picture of the top of the phone.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Bottom Of Front

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - System Information

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Design and Features

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Camera Specs

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - CPU

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - OpenGL

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Camera Options

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Picture of the Back

The back of the Samsung Galaxy S3 shows a possible 12-megapixel camera with 1080p video recording support.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Camera Options

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Rear Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone is said to feature a 4.6-inch AMOLED display with a 720 x 1184 resolution, a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, an NFC chip, 16 GB of storage plus micro SD capabilities. The back is said to feature a 12-megapixel camera with 1080p video recording.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Compared with S2

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Samsung Galaxy S3 - Design and Features

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Samsung Galaxy S3 Photo Leaked March 17

A photograph leaked on Reddit, tagged as a press image, suggested the launch date for the Galaxy S3 had been set for May 3rd at 6 pm (local time) in London.

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French protest Sarkozy's crisis response

PARIS - Thousands joined May Day demonstrations around France on Friday to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's social policies and his handling of the financial crisis.

Unions have organized nearly 300 marches and turnout is expected to be high, reflecting frustration about soaring unemployment, weak purchasing power and plant closures that have also led to a wave of bossnappings. [ID:nL9364335]

Union rallies are held on May Day in many European countries but turnout is expected to rise this year because of the crisis that has sent jobless numbers soaring.

In France the opposition Socialist party has called for its members to join the protests for the first time since 2002 and unions, which have been bickering over how to respond to Sarkozy, were trying to present a united front.

In a sign of how far disillusion has spread, even staff in management positions are expected to take part in marches.

It is absolutely not in our tradition to protest on May 1 but given the economic context in France and crisis we decided to join in, said Carole Couvert, a leader of the CFE-CGC union for executives.

It's a first for us because our method is negotiation.

The first marches started at around 0830 GMT in major towns such as Marseille, Toulouse, Le Mans, Orleans and Avignon. The Paris demonstration was due to start at 1130 GMT.

In Germany dozens of police were injured in clashes with protestors that erupted in the early hours of Friday.

Turkish riot police fired water cannon and tear gas in clashes with May Day demonstrators in Istanbul. The police cordoned off the city's main Taksim square.

Couvert's organization wants help from the government with training. Other unions are pushing for more support to help seniors and youths who are struggling to find jobs.

They also complain that the government's 26 billion euro investment-led stimulus put money in bosses' pockets but did nothing to help consumers.

French unemployment jumped by 63,400 to nearly 2.5 million in March, with a sharp rise in the number of young people seeking work.

The latest figures show that more than 440,000 jobs have disappeared in mainland France over the past year as the economic gloom has spread.

For young people this May 1 is important because we feel as though we're in the front line of this economic crisis, the front line of the rise in unemployment, said Jean-Baptiste Prevost, head of the Unef student union on LCI television.

The protests follow on from a March 19 day of protests attended by up to 3 million in the largest demonstrations since Sarkozy's election in 2007.

There have also been more violent protests with several managers at factory sites held for periods of 24 hours and more by angry workers threatened with plant closures, job cuts or reduced working hours.

A series of scandals over millions of euros in payouts to senior executives in companies that have benefited from government bailouts has fueled anger about Sarkozy's response.

Sarkozy has pledged tax cuts for the lower paid and extra support for youth training as part of a raft of measures to help struggling households. But he has resisted calls for more steps to help consumers as the left has demanded, pointing out that household spending has held up well throughout the crisis.

He can also take advantage of divisions among unions about how to respond to the crisis which could be seen on Friday despite the show of May Day unity.

Jean-Claude Mailly, head of the Force Ouvriere union suggested a 24-hour strike to follow up on the protests, an idea that is opposed by the moderate CFDT union.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date - Unveiling Set For Monday, April 23

Samsung may 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 at 9:52 a.m.: "Destination: tgeltaayehxnx." If you add a ".com" to the end of that anagram for "The Next Galaxy," you visit a Samsung Mobile website a beautiful-looking countdown clock.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date 2012: Countdown Results In Unscramble

Samsung would reportedly 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 at 9:52 a.m.: "Destination: tgeltaayehxnx." If you add a ".com" to the end of that anagram for "The Next Galaxy," you visit a Samsung Mobile website a beautiful-looking countdown clock. Now, the page has a message to unscramble the letters, but the script isn't working on the site. We'll update you once it is.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 Release Date - Press Invitation

The official press invitation from Samsung for its Samsung Mobile Unpacked Conference in London on May 3. It appears as though the actual unveiling date, however, will be brought up to April 23.

Update (11:07 a.m. ET): It looks like Samsung will tease the Galaxy S3 until its official unveiling at Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012. Get more details at www.TheNextGalaxy.com. Here is the company's newly released video:

Update (10:24 a.m. ET): Samsung's site is back up, but the site tgeltaayehxnx.com now redirects to Samsung Mobile's YouTube page. The latest video on that page is a teaser for Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012. The end of the video includes a link to tgeltaayehxnx.com, but again, it just redirects to Samsung's YouTube page. One Samsung executive said today the company will be releasing more teasers about the Galaxy S3 smartphone, so it may be that Samsung's pages are simply overwhelmed with traffic and the company needs to redirect its incoming users somewhere. We'll update you once we know more.

Update (7:47 a.m. ET): Samsung's landing page for tgeltaayehxnx.com has updated with a new message: You've got it all mixed up, Samsung says. Following technology blindly often gets you nowhere. Click on the letters in the correct order to reveal your real destination. However, the script on the website itself is still not working, and the unscrambled site TheNextGalaxy.com is also not working. We'll update you with more once Samsung's servers get rebooted.

Unless this is some type of elaborate marketing scheme, Samsung will unveil its third generation Galaxy S smartphone, the Galaxy S3, on Monday, April 23 at about 7 a.m ET.

On Sunday, Samsung Mobile's twitter account made a mysterious announcement at 9:52 a.m. ET: Destination: tgeltaayehxnx.

The word tgeltaayehxnx is actually an anagram that, when rearranged, spells The Next Galaxy. But better yet, if you add a .com to the end of that anagram, you visit a Samsung Mobile website a beautiful-looking countdown clock. The title of the page reads, A Whole New Universe. Unless this is an extremely late April Fool's Joke, it looks like Samsung's going to leap frog its own official May 3 unveiling at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in London with a surprise unveiling at around 7 a.m. on Monday, April 23. We'll be checking this very website at that time, as well as Samsung's main site, to see what goes down.

Up until this announcement, May 3 was the release date that most Samsung customers and Android smartphone users were looking forward to. Starting around mid-April, Samsung began releasing its invitations for the Samsung Mobile Unpacked event in London, but the invitations had a not-so-subtle to its next Galaxy S smartphone: Come and meet the next Galaxy, the invitations beckoned.

Destination: tgeltaayehxnx

— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) April 22, 2012

The latest report of the Samsung Galaxy S3 looks highly accurate: On Friday, April 20, Vietnamese website Tinhte claimed to be in possession of the Galaxy S3 smartphone, which they said was disguised as another phone, the Samsung GT-i9300. They said that smartphone featured a 4.6-inch AMOLED display with a 720 x 1184 resolution, a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor, an 8-megapixel camera, 1 GB of RAM, an NFC chip, 16 GB of storage plus micro SD capabilities.

Samsung may pushed up the Galaxy S3 unveiling because it knows Tinhte did in fact have smartphone, but if the news gets a chance to properly disseminate, Samsung will lose all chances to surprise fans. It's just like what happened to Apple back in 2010, when an engineer lost the iPhone 4 at a bar -- also disguised as another phone -- and The Verge got to describe the phone's specs in detail before Steve Jobs got a chance to. Samsung may not break the news first, but it refuses to be the last one to its own party.

Samsung Galaxy S3: Other Likely Features

Screen Size. Dutch tech site Tweakers.net expects the Samsung Galaxy S3 to feature a 4.7-inch AMOLED screen with a display resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. In contrast, BGR thinks the Galaxy S3 will feature a 4.8-inch full HD display with a 16:9 aspect ratio and 1080p resolution. Either way, the phone will reportedly be a monster, stretching from the 4.3-inch screen size of the S2 to a 4.6-4.8-inch display, which is almost tablet-sized.

With a screen stretched by almost half an inch, the Galaxy S3 will reportedly feature a five-column layout, similar to the Note, instead of the the four-column layout of earlier Galaxy models. If Samsung's really pushing the stylus like it is with the Note, who knows? Maybe the Galaxy S3 will come with an adorable mini stylus.

Home button. Speaking of tablet-sized, there were rumors that said the Samsung Galaxy S3 would dump its physical home button like the Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Instead, it looks like the S3 will get a home button just like its little brother, the S2, and its cousin, the Galaxy Note.

Processor Power. Tweakers expects the Galaxy S3 to feature Samsung's Exynos 4412, which is a quad-core system-on-a-chip made with four Cortex A9 processors running at 1.5 GHz. However, previous rumors said the Samsung Galaxy S3 could be packing a quad-core A9-based Exynos 4212, which can clock a whopping 1.8 GHz. We'll look forward to this specific feature on Samsung's forthcoming announcement planned for Monday, as 1.8 GHz would make this new Galaxy one of the fastest phones on the planet -- almost twice as fast as the iPhone 4S.

Outside and Inside. Outside, the Galaxy S3 smartphone will reportedly feature a much firmer ceramic made encasing, similar to that of the HTC One S. Inside, the phone will reportedly run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Face and Eye Tracking. One Samsung source told CNET that the company was working on adding advanced eye-tracking technologies to its front-facing camera, allowing it to detect when you're looking at the screen so it can lock when you look away. As interesting as the idea sounds, it could become a hassle if you need to enter your passcode every time you look up from your phone. Unlike the Face Unlock feature from Ice Cream Sandwich, this feature sounds very gimmicky.

Camera. Samsung is believed to have improved its 8-megapixel camera from the Galaxy S2 into a killer 12-megapixel camera for the S3. But besides taking up more space, the camera is also said to feature a 1/2.3-inch sensor, which is considerably bigger than the 1/3.2inch CMOS chip found in most smartphones -- iPhone 4S included. A camera with a similar chip, the Pentax Q system camera, costs more than $800 here in the U.S.

What else would you like to see in the Samsung Galaxy S3? Are you excited for this April 23 announcement? Is Samsung pulling our legs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.