Samsung Galaxy S III Launching on Five UK Carriers

Details regarding the UK launch of Samsung's newest Galaxy phone are emerging.

Samsung yesterday officially unveiled the Galaxy S III, the next phone in its successful line of Galaxy devices. The event itself was staged in London and Samsung detailed that the company plans to launch the phone in Europe before the end of this month and elsewhere in the world in June. The company said the phone would be available in 145 countries and revealed that it had partnered with more than 200 carriers to make that possible. So just who will be stocking the phone in the UK? All major carriers, apparently.

Carphone Warehouse has confirmed that the phone will be available from Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and Three starting at the end of this month. Pricing and tariffs will depend on which carrier you go with, but Vodafone has a month-long exclusive on the 32GB model, so if 16GB isn't enough for you, you'll have to be prepared to wait (or move to Vodafone).

Orange is keeping pretty quiet about its plans for the device but is inviting interested parties to register their interest on its website. Vodafone is getting the exclusive on the 32GB (for one month), and is also offering customers the opportunity to register for updates. Three started taking pre-orders today in its stores and will offer the phone for free on a £34 per month control. T-Mobile hasn't got the phone listed on its site just yet, while O2 is already taking pre-orders online. Carphone Warehouse has the phone listed for free on a £36 per month contract with Vodafone or Orange, while O2's cheapest monthly plan with the phone free is £41. T-Mobile will also give you the phone for £41 per month but you'll have to pay £149 up front as well. If contracts aren't your style, you can get the phone SIM-free from Carphone for £500.

The Galaxy S III packs a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED 1280 x 720 display; a quad-core Exynos processor; 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera on the back with a 1.9-megpixel affair up front; Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with Samsung's TouchWiz UI on top and new gesture functions to improve navigation; and support for HSPA+.

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