Is a Samsung Galaxy S II Plus really in the works? And is it really needed?

Yesterday we learned that the Samsung Galaxy S III would be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, but the company is still looking forward to “introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products” at Mobile World Congress 2012. According to Anton Nagy of PocketNow, one of those products could be the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus.

Anton posted an An3DBenchXL result which listed a device with the name “Galaxy S 2+”, 1.5 GHz processor, Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, and a WVGA display. The low resolution display is a little puzzling, but it could have been altered for benchmarking purposes. Like most of these leaks, the results could have been easily spoofed, but it still raises some interesting questions.

Early this week we were discussing the possibility of a Galaxy Nexus Plus, so Samsung might have decided to refresh their current lineup as filler until the Galaxy S III is ready this summer.

Today my friend Kote from the Spanish blog Xataka sent me a picture of a new Samsung phone that appears to be this mysterious Galaxy S II Plus. You can see from the post image above that this device is running Android 4.0 and features three capacitive buttons that are similar to other Ice Cream Sandwich phones (Back, Home, Multitask). Again, this could totally be faked, but someone spent the extra time to add Mobile World Congress to the calendar widget and Barcelona to the weather widget on the desktop.

If Samsung were to release a Galaxy S II Plus with a 1.5 GHz processor, then it could feature the new dual-core 1.5 GHz Exynos 4212 that was announced last year. This chip is the first to market with Samsung’s advanced 32nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) low-power process, which promises “30 percent lower power-level over the previous process generation.” It also features a faster clocked GPU that promises “50 percent higher 3D graphics performance over the previous processor generation from Samsung.”

We have already seen what feels like a dozen different variations of the Galaxy S II in the U.S., so it wouldn’t be a total shocker to see a couple more. The carriers run the wireless world, so if they requested an updated phone for the first half of 2012, I’m sure Samsung will deliver.

What are your thoughts on a possible Galaxy S II Plus? Would anyone buy this phone or would you just wait it out for the Galaxy S III?

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Samsung has two Android tablets codenamed P3100 and P5100 in the works

For Samsung Mobile, CES seemed to be about the AT&T Galaxy Note, and not much else. The speculation is rampant for what they will show us at Mobile World Congress. We were expecting a heavy dose of Galaxy S III, but that was squashed last week. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is starting to show its age, so it’s a safe bet that we will see an updated slate or two. With the iPad 3 on the horizon, and the likes of the ASUS Transformer Prime, Samsung needs to step up its game.

We recently reported that they have a 2GHz Exynos-powered tab in the works, and now two tabs just received WiFi certification – The GT-P3100 and GT-P5100. We don’t know anything more than these model numbers, but what we can interpolate from them is that it looks like they’re either 10-inch and 7 to 8-inch versions of the same thing or maybe one higher-end and one lower-end model. With the Amazon Kindle Fire tearing it up as of late, Samsung might consider a lower priced offering.

Could we see these tabs next month at Mobile World Congress? It’s likely, but only time will tell. I’m sure more details will surface soon, and we will let you know as soon as we find out.

One more image after the break

[via androinica]

» See more articles by Robert Nazarian

Categorized as Android Leaks & Rumours, Android Manufacturers, Android News, Android Tablets

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