Galaxy S3 faces new challenge - from LG's 2 gigabyte monster

Samsungs new Galaxy S3(seen below) hits the shops later this month but it could face stiff competition from an unexpected quarter if LG release their new Korean phone, the LTE 2, worldwide.

Confirmed to have 2 gigabytes of RAM (that's double the amount found in the impressive S3) it has more ram than any phone currently available, and there are no phones coming out in the near future which even come close to this amount of memory. The phone runs Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), features wireless charging and has a large 2150 mAh battery but that is all that's known for now....or is it?

Rumours have been circulating for a while now that LG would release a phone, code named D1L, which would feature wireless charging, a 4.7 inch display, dual core snapdragon S4 cpu, LTE connectivity and run the latest version of the Android operating system. Rumour also had it that this phone would hit Korean shops in May.

With the LTE 2 releasing in Korea this May, and no phone officially named D1L slated for release by LG any time soon, it looks increasingly likely that the LTE2 is in fact the retail version of the D1L. It shares the May release date, LTE connectivity, wireless charging and large screen size. But if they are one and the same then why have LG chosen another dual core cpu rather than a quad core, and why give it such a high amount of memory?

The two gigabytes of RAM mean that the phone will easily handle anything thrown at it, a problem with Android is that apps often reload themselves ready for use. While this is great if you have lots of memory the problem is that on devices with 512 mb RAM (or less) you have to wait for other apps to close and free up some memory so that the app you want to run can actually start up. This can lead to a delay or black screen, or sometimes lead to the device you're using feeling slow and unresponsive.

With one gigabyte this isn't a problem, and with two it means the phone will be able to keep more apps in memory and still have plenty left for new ones, resulting in a faster more responsive device that when combined with the new version of Android makes for a super fast highly responsive system.

The dual core S4 is actually a good choice, even over a quad core, in tests it's been found to rival the latest quad core Tegra (it really has five cores but it's officially classed as quad core) and in some cases even beat it, and less cores consume less power which means that batteries last longer between charges. The S4 is good enough that some variants of the quad core Galaxy S3 will actually use this dual core processor rather than the Exynos quad core that the standard model will ship with.

For those unsure of the benefits of a dual core, gadgetnode tested the AT&T version of the HTC One X which runs the dual core S4 against the quad core version of the same phone and you can see from their results pictured here that the S4 easily won. A powerful dual core cpu that can beat its quad core rivals and two gigabytes of RAM would make the LTE 2 one of the most powerful phones available and give the Samsung Galaxy S3 some tough competition and if the LTE2 is in fact the D1L then its 312 ppi 4.7 inch screen would at least in theory be crisper and more detailed than the slightly lower density and slightly larger 4.8 inch 306 ppi of the Samsung.

It's unclear whether the LTE2 will ever hit the European or American markets, but the current model (Optimus LTE) has and so it seems likely that the LTE2 will follow suit with later this year. If it does Samsung may have a fight on their hands, although LG's reputation for slow updates may put some off of buying it the specs and hardware are certainly strong enough to make this one of the phones to beat for the forseeable future.