Rumor: Galaxy S III coming in April with NFC

Another day, another fleeting rumor of the ever-elusive Galaxy S III. After skipping out on Mobile World Congress tro throw its own party Apple-style, Samsung still hasn’t mentioned when it intends to bring the Galaxy S III to market. The CHEIL Worldwide Marketing company thinks they know, according to ZD Net Korea: they say that Samsung is planning a huge promotion for April, when they expect the phone to launch in multiple markets worldwide. The 2012 Summer Olympics will reportedly play a large part in the initial promotion.

The reasoning for the Olympic tie-in is a deal between Samsung, credit card company Visa and the IOC, launching a new NFC-based payment system with the Galaxy S III as the flagship device. NFC certainly makes sense – Samsung has been including it with most of the high-end phones it’s announced in the last few months. The April release seems a little dubious, to be honest: there’s already a Samsung event scheduled for later this month in France, so they’d need to get the product finalized, announced and delivered in a span of just a few weeks.

There’s very little information about the Galaxy S III that can be verified. A large screen, fast processor and Samsung’s TouchWiz version of Ice Cream Sandwich seem like a given, but every analyst and insider between here and South Korea seems intent on getting a word in edgewise. At the moment about the only thing we can say for sure is that a successor to the incredibly popular Galaxy S III is on its way – some time, somewhere.

Huawei unveils the Ascend D Quad, claiming it’s the world’s fastest smartphone

As Mobile World Congress prepares to open its doors in Barcelona tomorrow, Chinese manufacturer Huawei has unveiled what it claims is the world’s fastest smartphone – the Ascend D Quad.

With a K3V2 quad-core 1.2GHz/1.5GHz processor, this Android Ice Cream Sandwich-touting handset will certainly be no slouch.

In a 64mm x 8.9mm casing, it sports a 4.5-inch 720P HD display, Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound and Audience earSmart voice technology. Camera-wise, we’re looking at a pretty standard (for high-end Android devices) 8-megapixel rear camera and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, plus 1080p full HD video-capture and playback.

Huawei claims that the 1800mAh battery will last “for one to two days with normal usage.” Experience of brochure battery life claims leads us to believe that when we see it, although the company claims that proprietary power management technology boosts battery life by up to 30%. The Ascend D Quad will be available in black and white models.

 

Huawei has also announced the Ascend D quad XL, with a 2500mAh battery for a supposed “two to three days of normal usage,” and the Ascend D1, with a 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU and 1670mAh battery.

The Ascend D quad series is set to launch in China, Australia, Europe, Asia-Pacific, North and South America, and the Middle East in Q2 2012. The Ascend D1 is set to launch in these markets in April 2012.

Meanwhile, The Verge has pictures of Huawei’s MediaPad 10 HD, an Android Ice Cream Sandwich tablet with a 1080p display and an 8-megapixel camera in a super-thin 8.8mm thick casing.

Keep up with all The Next Web’s Mobile World Congress coverage here.

Huawei Ascend D Quad