Samsung Galaxy S III gets first confirmed carrier

The "next Galaxy" bandwagon already has its first carrier onboard, despite official details of the new Samsung flagship amounting to little more than hyperbole and livestock. Vodafone UK has confirmed that the next Galaxy – expected to be the Galaxy S III, in spirit if not in name – is headed to its network, offering would-be owners of the mysterious phone to register their details for future updates.

The UK is a competitive market for smartphones, and we've seen carriers increasingly eager to throw their oar in with new handsets so as to associate their networks with particular brands. Still, it's more usual for them to actually wait for the phones to at least be announced first, something Vodafone doesn't appear to want to do.

That could mean that the rumors of Samsung postponing the Galaxy S III announcement until it could release the handset to the market just after may well be true, and that sales will begin almost immediately after the big May 3 reveal. Alternatively, though, it might just be a keen carrier wanting to join in with the hype.

According to the recent leaks, the Galaxy S III will have a roughly 4.7-inch display using Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus technology, a 12-megapixel camera and a 1.4GHz quadcore Exynos processor paired with 400MHz ARM Mali-400 graphics. Still unknown is the handset's aesthetic, however; though prototypes have been caught on video, Samsung is believed to have used a temporary casing so as to keep the final design secret.