Samsung I9103 Galaxy Z preview

The Galaxy S lineup is no stranger to versioning - the original Galaxy S relied on half a dozen different editions to achieve its market success. Its successor will obviously take a similar path as we just got its first body double in the face of the Samsung I9103 Galaxy Z. With Tegra 2 stepping in for the Exynos chipset and SC-LCD taking the place of the new generation SuperAMOLED Plus, the Galaxy S Z should be covering for the cases when the Galaxy S II is just slightly out of budget, while at the same time saving on the precious AMOLED panels.

Samsung I9103 Galaxy S Z official photos
Now, the Samsung I9100 is obviously a winning formula so Samsung should be extra careful with any changes that it introduces.
Tegra 2 is a fine alternative to Exynos and we already know what kind of performance to expect. We’ve seen the switch to SC-LCD before – with the I9003 Galaxy SL. With the numbers the SuperAMOLED Plus packing I9100 is selling, it’s no surprise that Samsung will try to sell a few units that don’t use up their scarce SuperAMOLED recourses.
We’ve summarized the specs of the Samsung I9103 Galaxy Z to get you acquainted with the device quickly, so we can move on to the fun stuff.

Samsung I9103 Galaxy Z at a glance:

• General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, 3G with HSPA
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
• Dimensions: 125 x 66.1 x 9.5 mm, 135g
• Display: 4.2" 16M-color SC-LCD capacitive touchscreen, 480 x 800 pixels
• CPU: Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 chipset
• Memory: 1GB RAM, 2GB ROM, 8GB storage, microSD card slot
• OS: Android OS, v2.3.3 Gingerbread with TouchWiz 4.0
• Camera: 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash; face detection, geo-tagging; 1.3MP front-facing camera
• Video recording: 720p video recording
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio
• Battery: 1650mAh
• Misc: Built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, Swype text input, Office document viewer/editor

Clearly, the I9103 Galaxy Z is meant as a companion of the I9100 Galaxy S II – early pricing info also suggests that the two belong to different market segments.
We would have liked an 8MP camera and 1080p video capture, but if sticking to the 5MP/720p camera specs means we can munch on Gingerbread for less cash than the S II would cost, then we won’t complain. After all, the original Galaxy S had a similar camera module and we’re quite pleased with it.

Samsung I9103 Galaxy Z live shots
Before proceeding further, we should point out that we’re using a pre-production model of the Samsung I9103 Galaxy Z and the hardware might change before the design is finalized. The software looks identical to the one in the I9100 Galaxy S II, so that probably won’t see much (if any) changes. Further optimizations to suit

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