With tech companies these days doing what they can to create that little bit of extra buzz ahead of a product launch, it will come as little surprise that Samsung is attempting to increase the hype around the imminent launch of its latest handset with the posting of a new webpage: tgeltaayehxnx.com
At first glance, tgeltaayehxnx does of course appear to be little more than a meaningless jumble of random letters, but the word sleuths among you will have already noticed that it’s actually an anagram of The Next Galaxy. Go to tgeltaayehxnx.com and you’ll see a clock counting down to, well, something — most likely a snippet of information regarding Samsung’s highly-anticipated flagship Galaxy S III Android-powered handset, set for launch early next month.
Samsung Mobile drew attention to the page on its Twitter feed on Sunday, tweeting simply: “Destination: tgeltaayehxnx”.
The tgeltaayehxnx webpage currently gives little away, saying only, “Coming soon. You can take the next step in…” Underneath the message, the countdown clock ticks down. It’ll reach zero hours at 7am ET, 4am PT.
The Galaxy S III is set to be unveiled in London on May 3, so we can only guess as to what Samsung will be revealing come zero hours — a fuzzy image of the S III in silhouette, perhaps? A dazzling video presentation hinting at what we can expect with this new, long-awaited device, possibly? Another countdown clock?
The Seoul-based electronics company has been keen to keep the new device under wraps until launch day, hoping to generate more interest among consumers in the process. Apple is the master at keeping products under wraps, of course, with truckloads of rumors doing the rounds before the launch of every new iPhone and iPad.
The rumor mill has been turning for the S III as well, but not quite to the extent that it does for Apple’s new launches. Late last week, a Vietnamese website posted a video showing what it claimed to be Samsung’s upcoming handset. It suggested the device would comprise a 4.6-inch 1184×720-pixel Super AMOLED screen, 16GB of storage with internal with microSD slot, an 8-megapixel rear camera and be powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor — though of course we won’t know for sure until May 3.
More possible details emerged over the weekend when it was reported that Amazon’s German site had posted a listing for the S III. Whereas the video on the Vietnamese website has been removed, Amazon’s page remains up. It suggests a screen size of 4.7 inches, and a 12-megapixel camera. The webpage also says the phone will come with 16GB of internal memory, expandable to 32GB.
Samsung is betting heavily on the success of its upcoming device, with the S II having already proved itself among consumers with more than 20 million units sold since its launch a year ago.
With many expecting Apple to unveil the iPhone 5 this fall, the Korean tech giant will be eager to get in early with its new S III handset and show people what it believes to be a viable alternative to the Cupertino company’s popular handset.
Right then, let’s see how the countdown clock’s doing….
