If you were worried about the Rs 43,000 India price tag on the new Samsung Galaxy S3, there is some good news — the actual retail price of the phone is about Rs 39,000.
The white model is available on ecommerce site Indiaplaza for Rs 38,900. Similarly, Flipkart, India’s biggest Internet retailer has put the Galaxy SIII on sale at the same price. The estimated release date of the phone on Flipkart has been shown as the first week of June, implying deliveries by the second week of this month.
The Rs 4,000 rebate is likely to offer solace to many fans of arguably the greatest Android phone ever, who were turned off by the high cost.
Flipkart is India’s biggest e-retailer and recently acquired Letsbuy, which had already created a name for itself as a top vendor of gadgets in India.
With the new price, the Samsung Galaxy S III is only Rs 3,000 (about 8%) more expensive than its closest competitor, the HTC One X. The One X is priced at Rs 36,000 in India.
It will also stand a better chance against LG Optimex 4X, which will be released later this month globally, though it is unclear when it will hit the Indian stores.
Both the HTC and LG Optimex models are based on the Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset, while the Samsung Galaxy S3 is based on its own design. Many consider the LG and HTC models to be better looking due to their more traditional rectangular shapes.
The Galaxy S3 also has an edge in software as Samsung has spent more on differentiating its phones using custom-made software. The Korean company has a huge contingent of software engineers at its Bangalore software centre, its biggest outside South Korea.
Both the Galaxy S3 and the HTC One X have Android 4, 8 megapixel cameras, shoots ful HD 1080p video, 1 GB of RAM, HD display (1280*720 pixels), quad-core processors, 21 Mbps 3G and weigh around 130 gm.
The two models differ in display size and type, processor speed, graphics processor type, front-camera resolution, availability of memory card option and battery capacity.
The S3 also has a 4.8 inch display, which is 4.3% bigger than that of the HTC One X and the LG Optimus 4X.
