How close did the rumor mongers get to the actual Samsung Galaxy S III specs?

After months and months (and months) of speculation, the Samsung Galaxy S III has finally been introduced. How close did all of the speculation get to the actual specs of the phone? The first guess at what the specs would be like for the sequel to the wildly popular Samsung Galaxy S II came last September. According to an anonymous poster on 4Chan, the Samsung Galaxy S III was to have a 4.65 inch Super AMOLED III screen with a resolution of 1024 x 1280 to give the screen a pixel density of an Apple iPhone busting 352 ppi. It was thought that a  quad-core 2.0GHz processor would reside under the hood with 1.5GB of RAM on board.

By March, speculation was that the Samsung Galaxy S III would come to market with a 4.7 inch screen with 720p resolution and a 12MP camera. It would be powered by a 1750mAh battery and would feature a quad-core 1.5GHz processor along with 1GB of RAM. Outside of the slightly smaller display, the overly megapixled camera, the smaller battery and a tad faster clock speed on the processor, that was a pretty good guess of what was announced on Thursday. As we got closer to May 3rd, the information was becoming more learned. For example, a screen protector made precisely for the Samsung Galaxy S III was leaked, leading to estimates of a 4.8 inch screen on the device, a call that was 100% right on (right on!).

One of the most interesting debates centered on the type and speed of the processor that would be running the Samsung Galaxy S III. Most early predictions called for a quad-core processor and during the waning days of last month, Samsung's global blog said that the quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 4412 would be found inside the phone. Even though you can't get better inside info than that, it didn't end the processor controversy. This led to the question about what would be found in the U.S. version of the Samsung Galaxy S III considering that the quad-core Exynos processor did not get along with LTE connectivity. The very next day, an unnamed executive from the Korean based manufacturer said that only the U.S. variant of the handset would feature a dual-core Qualcomm processor. We figured it would be the S4, a processor becoming famous for powering high-end devices in the States offering LTE connectivity. Thursday's introduction confirms the quad-core Exynos 4412 in the international version of the device although there is no official word on what the U.S. and Japanese model will offer.

One area where the rumors fell short was with the display. There had been speculation, seen in a story from a Korean website and elsewhere, that  the Samsung Galaxy S III would offer the first HD  AMOLED screen without a PenTile display, using the RGB matrix instead. Unfortunately, this did not come true and the unit will indeed use the oft-criticized PenTile display.

Samsung obviously was able to keep much of the Samsung Galaxy S III secret. Yes, last month the color choices of blue and white had been leaked, but things like the design of the phone and the Siri-like S Voice never did get totally leaked. And even a killer accessory that was discussed back in March, wireless charging, was incorrectly tipped to come out of the box with the phone. Talk that the phone would come with a different name was also way off and, luckily for everyone, so was the word that the Samsung Galaxy S III would be just an incremental update from the prior model. Missing from the device is a ceramic case that was rumored to be part of the handset's final design.

For those who missed the announcement, the international model of the Samsung Galaxy S III is equipped with a 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED display with a quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos processor and has 1GB of RAM on board. The rear-facing camera will be 8MP and a 1.9MP front-facing camera will take self-portraits and support video chat. A 2100mAh battery keeps the lights on and Android 4.0 is installed out of the box.

No more guessing games, no more speculation. The Samsung Galaxy S III has been introduced and just about everything pertaining to the phone has been released. Do you think that much of the speculation turned out to be accurate, or was it way off? Regardless, we can now get a breather, if only for a few weeks as the next Apple iPhone is coming down the pike, and then...the Samsung Galaxy S IV.