Samsung Galaxy S3 has so far been a success for the South Korean company, selling over 20 million units worldwide since its release earlier this summer.
Although most of the sales came from the European markets, the Galaxy S3 also sold more devices in the US compared to other rival phones in August, notably Apple's iPhone 4S, in all major mobile carriers (AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon).
Features for the Galaxy S3 include 3G and 4G LTE network connectivity, a Super AMOLED 4.8-inch touchscreen with 720x1280 pixels, 1GB RAM, Bluetooth and Near Field Communication (NFC) access, eight-megapixel rear-facing camera with 3264x2448 pixels, 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera, Android operating system (OS) 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A9, and Li-Ion 2100 mAh.
But what exactly do most of these terms mean?
3G & 4G LTE Networks: The two terms are from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an intergovernmental organization that develops telecommunications. This organization is dominant, that it is even recognized as a United Nations agency in 1947.
3G is an ITU specification, and it stands for third generation. With 3G, the bandwidth is increased to 384 kilobites (kbps), which measures data transfer speeds. 4G is the fourth generation and enables data and streaming multimedia at higher speeds. The Long Term Evolution, or LTE, was developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) that helps provides an increase of speeds up to 10 times more compared to 3G networks.
Super AMOLED Screen: According to Samsung, the Super AMOLED HD screen will provide, "breathtaking visuals and crystal clear detail." Mobile Burn defines it as having at least 720p HD resolution.
Resolution: The resolution indicates the number of dots (pixels) per inch (DPI). Therefore, if the Galaxy S3's resolution is 1,280x720, then there are 921,600 DPI. This also means the device will be capable of displaying 1,280 distinctive dots, or pixels, on each of the 720 lines.
GB/RAM: A GB is known as a gigabyte, and one gigabyte hold up to 1,024 megabytes. The term "byte" is actually an abbreviation for "binary term," and is a unit of storage. A RAM, short for Random Access Memory, is the most common type of computer memory found in devices.
As Wedopedia explained, "For example, a computer with 8MB RAM has approximately 8 million bytes of memory that programs can use."
Operating System (OS): The OS for the Galaxy S3 is Android's Ice Cream Sandwich, known as 4.0.4. The purpose for an OS is the software platform that runs mobile devices and helps programs run sufficiently. It is considered the most important program that runs a device.
Previous Android OS nicknames include Cupcake, Donut, Éclair, FroYo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and most recently the Jelly Bean.
Megapixel: A megapixel means one million pixels. A pixel is short for "picture element" and is a single point in a graphic image. The quality of the pixels varies on the display's resolution. The rear-facing camera will therefore have eight millions pixels, and the front-facing camera will have 1.9 million pixels.
Battery Capacity: The Galaxy S3 used 2,100 mAh. Short for Milliampere-hour, mAh indicates how batteries are rated for capacity power. The higher the mAh, then the stronger and healthier the battery of the device will be. The device also uses a Li-Ion battery, short for Lithium-Ion, which is ideal for portable devices due to high energy density and weight.
Near Field Communication (NFC): is a standards-based short-range wireless connectivity that helps the collaboration of similar devices that are in short-range. According to Webopedia, NFC can be broken down to four categories:
Touch and Go: Applications such as access control or transport/event ticketing, where the user needs only to bring the device storing the ticket or access code close to the reader. Also, for simple data capture applications, such as picking up an Internet URL from a smart label on a poster.
Touch and Confirm: Applications such as mobile payment where the user has to confirm the interaction by entering a password or just accepting the transaction.
Touch and Connect: Linking two NFC-enabled devices to enable peer to peer transfer of data such as downloading music, exchanging images or synchronizing address books.
Touch and Explore: NFC devices may offer more than one possible function. The consumer will be able to explore a device's capabilities to find out which functionalities and services are offered.
Bluetooth: Another short-ranger but for radio and wireless technology aimed at making the collaboration efforts among other Internet devices much simpler. Bluetooth also helps simplify data synchronization.
Credit in assisting the definitions goes to Webopedia.com.