Almost immediately after making the International Samsung Galaxy S 3 (SGS3) official, speculation started about just what features would make it over to the variants bound for carriers in the Americas and in regions with LTE. Today, Samsung made two Canadian-bound variants of the SGS3 official: SGH-i747 with LTE, and SGH-iT999 with DC-HSPA+ 42 Mbps. Both are built around Qualcomm's MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 SoC at 1.5 GHz, which we've already seen in the HTC One X (AT&T) and HTC One S. Where the SGS3 does mix things up is the inclusion of 2 GB of LPDDR2 RAM. The rest of the details are unchanged - these two newly announced variants still have the same camera, WLAN, and display. Samsung has also given the same sizes and mass, which is a bit surprising since this varied last time around. We've put together a table with some comparisons between the variants and what we know at this point, I suspect closer to launch we'll flesh out some of the obvious question marks.

Samsung Galaxy S III Variants
Carrier SGH-i747 SGH-iT999 GT-I9300
SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960
(2 x Krait @ 1.5 GHz)
Samsung Exynos 4 Quad / Exynos 4412
(4 x Cortex A9 @ 1.4 GHz)
RAM 2 GB LPDDR2 1 GB LPDDR2
Network Support LTE UE Category 3 DC-HSPA+ 42.2 HSPA+ 21.1 (Intel XMM6262)
Display Size 4.8" 1280x720 HD SAMOLED (PenTile RGBG)
Size, Mass 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm, 133g
Storage 16 / 32 GB NAND, microSD 16 GB NAND, microSD 16 / 32 / 64 GB NAND, microSD
Cameras 8MP Rear-facing, 1.9MP Front-facing
WiFi/BT/NFC WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, NFC, BT 4.0 (BCM4334)
Battery 3.7V 2100mAh (7.77 Whr)
Announced Carriers Bell Mobility, Virgin Mobile, SaskTel, TELUS and Rogers Wireless Videotron, Wind and Mobilicity N/A (International)

Samsung also explicitly called out a few Canadian carriers, and from that you can surmise the band support of the two variants. Namely the inclusion of AWS (1700/2100) support on SGH-iT999, and 850/1900 MHz WCDMA alongside AWS and 700 MHz LTE on SGH-i747. Based on how closely the Canadian SGS2 variants mirrored the USA variants last time around, it seems likely that we're looking at what is or is very close to the SGS3s coming to T-Mobile and AT&T in the SGH-iT999 and SGH-i747, respectively. 

Source: Samsung

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  • Impulses - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Are they reacting to LG (doubtful) or is it just some sort of concession in lieu of the quad Exynos (tho AFAIK Krait has little to envy outside of the GPU).
  • metafor - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Likely has to do with the LTE/HSPA+ modem, just like with the GS2.
  • phatboye - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    So they aren't getting these new SGS3s or the HTC One X. Epix fail Verizon, epic fail.
  • ssddaydream - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    How did you deduce that Verizon won't be getting a GS3 variant?
  • Impulses - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Canada's GSM variants have no bearing on a CDMA variant destined for Sprint/VZW... It's not like anything has been officially announced for the US anyway.
  • phatboye - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Ok that sounds better. I was under the impression that this article was basically stating otherwise. Thanks for clearing that up.
  • S3xycaneye - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 or the Exynos 4412? Not in multi threaded test but in general use.
  • amdwilliam1985 - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    In terms of speed, I think it'll be fine with either.
    My SGS2 is plenty fast already with gingerbread, SGS3 will be faster with ICS.

    I'll pick the one that has better battery, if battery life are the same(or insignificant differences) then I'll go for the quad-core for the sake of "future proof".
  • icrf - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    I'm personally more interested in Krait for that reason, but I don't have hard numbers to back it up. I'd rather have two faster cores than four slower ones. I don't think smart phone usage models are so threaded to need more than two cores at the moment.
  • dgingeri - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link

    Well, I can tell you, from experience with my HTC One S, the Krait is darn fast. I have no regrets not waiting on the SGS3, even if mine has a lower res screen and "only" a dual core chip. It's a darn good phone.

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