Samsung Galaxy S III: Can 'the best Android' phone pull off a sequel?

The Samsung Galaxy S III will launch later this year, Samsung reps said in a statement. 

In February of last year, Samsung released the Galaxy S II, a handset armed with the Android Gingerbread OS, a 1.2 GHz dual-core chip, and a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen. Critics loved it. Writing in Engadget, Vlad Savov identified the Galaxy S II as "the best Android smartphone yet." More important, Savov added, "it might well be the best smartphone, period." 

Now comes news that the Samsung Galaxy S III will be released later this year – not at the Mobile World Congress, as had originally been rumored, but at a corporate event staged by Samsung.  

"Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012," Samsung reps wrote in a statement obtained by TechRadar. "The successor to the Galaxy S2 smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product." 

Samsung has remained pretty mum on the details of its new handset, which will likely get an updated version of Android, and some new innards. Over at Gotta Be Mobile, Adam Mills pleads with Samsung to shake things up on the design front. 

"I really, really, really hope that Samsung does not go down the same design route it did with the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy S II devices," Mills wrote. "Let’s mix it up a bit and get rid of the plastic. I realize that it’s going to cost more money to do something different – say aluminum, but this phone needs to be mind-blowing if it’s going to top the Galaxy S II, the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5." 

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