Although the Samsung Galaxy S3 (S III) has already arrived in some regions the U.S. is still eagerly awaiting its appearance. We’ve been hearing various details of the stateside release on various carriers and although there’s no confirmed AT&T release date yet, we have now heard that pre-orders are available from today (June 6) as well as news that AT&T is set to carry a mystery red Galaxy S3.
We have already told how Sprint and T-Mobile will release the Galaxy S3 on June 21 while a rumored date for the Verizon variant is July 5. Hopefully AT&T will also release in June rather than later but rather intriguingly while the other 3 major carriers seem to be offering the Galaxy S3 in 16 or 32GB models at $199 or $249 respectively, AT&T only has the 16GB model up for pre-order, again priced at $199. Regional network U.S. Cellular will also be carrying the Galaxy S3 16/32GB variants and pre-orders begin on June 12 but the release will not be until some time in July.
We previously informed that it looks as though US carrier variants will look the same as the international version, apart from carrier branding of course. Previously US carriers have insisted on changes to the standard Galaxy S phones, such as capacitive touch buttons instead of a physical home key but it does look so far as though the physical home button will appear on the US variants this time around. Purported images of the Verizon and T-Mobile Galaxy S3 certainly appear to be identical to the international model and AT&T’s also looks the same.
The latest AT&T news came to us from Tech Crunch who also informs that AT&T is to offer a red version of the Galaxy S3. While the Galaxy S3 has been available in Marble White or Pebble Blue for other regions and also for the other US carriers, we’ve seen no mention of a red version before but apparently this will be exclusive to AT&T. Maybe opting for a Galaxy S3 color option that no other carrier has is AT&T’s way of making its variant stand out then.
As for AT&T not appearing to offer the 32GB version, Tech Crunch points out that there will be a promotion for customers to get a cheaper 16GB microSD card so speculates that maybe the carrier has passed on the 32GB model for the exclusive red model. Of course we have no way of knowing this but it certainly seems possible. The red AT&T Galaxy S3 is set to be launched later this summer but at present we don’t know if this means it will release at the same time as the blue or white versions on AT&T or whether it will follow later. There are no official images yet of the red Galaxy S3 so we’ve shown a mock-up of it, courtesy of Tech Crunch at the top of this story.
As with other US variants of the Galaxy S3, the NVIDIA quad-core processor will be replaced with the Snapdragon S4 dual-core and the AT&T Galaxy S3 will also feature 4G LTE connectivity and 2GB of RAM. If you want to check out AT&T’s teaser page for the Galaxy S3 head here where you’ll see that pre-orders are now open although only the blue or white color options are showing at the moment.
What are your thoughts on AT&T pre-orders for the Galaxy S3 now being available? Will you be waiting for the exclusive red variant or would you rather AT&T had simply offered the 32GB version that seems to be absent at present? Let us know with your comments.
