4 things you may not know about the Galaxy S III

Announced last week in London, the Galaxy S III is Samsung's latest flagship smartphone and the much-anticipated successor to the popular Galaxy S II. The third-generation S series handset comes with a new design that's reminiscent of the Galaxy Nexus, while retaining a few tweaks such as the Home Button and physical menu keys from the Galaxy S II.


The handset also differentitates itself from other current high-end Android smartphones such as the HTC One X with a removable 2,100mAh battery as well as a microSD card slot for more storage. While some may feel that the handset design isn't exactly "new", Samsung has added a few things to refresh the appearance of the phone. Here are five things you may not know about the Galaxy S III.

Avoiding legal battles

Android Police has a very interesting article on the S III's design. Specifically, the article points out that Samsung wants to avoid getting its handset banned in countries where it is facing legal issues with Apple.


The article highlights certain features, such as the non-symmetrical top and bottom and the lack of the curved square edges present in the S III as evidence for its claims. It all sounds very believable when you think about it.


Where's my Recent Apps?


The menu button doesn't call out Ice Cream Sandwich's Recent Apps--instead, it defaults to Gingerbread's menu button. This is not something we're particularly fond of, though Samsung's not the only guilty party. LG did the same thing with its ICS handsets, and we feel it doesn't really match Google's ICS design guidelines. Samsung could have made TouchWiz more ICS-like by doing what HTC did with its Sense UI and enhanced the Recent Apps menu instead

Corning Gorilla Glass 2

Despite its plastic build, the Samsung Galaxy S III comes equipped with Corning's second-generation Gorilla Glass. The S III's slim profile is partly due to the use of Gorilla Glass 2, which is 20 percent thinner (at 0.8mm) than the original Gorilla Glass. Despite the reduction in depth, the glass is touted to retain the same strength as its predecessor, which means it will not crack or break as easily as normal glass

Face and voice unlock

ICS introduced Face Unlock, a feature where you can use your face to unlock the handset. It's not foolproof though, as we managed to unlock the device using a photo. Samsung has added another layer of security through a voice recognition feature. In theory, this should make it much harder for someone to unlock your handset, though we are guessing that this may not work too well in noisy environments.