There is a good reason why one should not pre-book a high-profile smartphone in India, unless you are the kinds who like to flaunt the latest gizmo before anyone else – you end up paying through your nose for an exclusivity window that lasts for just a week. The Samsung Galaxy S III is no different. Launched today for a whopping Rs 43,180, the Galaxy S III’s price is dropping faster than Facebook’s IPO.

Samsung’s own estore is now offering it to those who pre-booked it or still want to buy it right away for Rs 42,500 but if you are willing to wait for a week, you could end up saving Rs 3,500 or more. Most online retailers are already offering it for under Rs 39,000. Online retail giant, Flipkart is taking pre-bookings for the Galaxy S III for Rs 38,900 while Buytheprice is adding a Rs 1,000 voucher along with a pair of Skullcandy headphones. Mumbai-based retailer, Mahesh Telecom is offering the smartphone for just Rs 37,800.

For now, the Galaxy S III will be available only at Samsung Plazas and Samsung Smartphone Cafes but it should be widely available across major retailers by next week at a much lower price. Wait it out, we suggest.

Samsung is all set to launch the much-awaited Galaxy S III in India today. The Galaxy S III takes on the mantle of Samsung’s flagship smartphone from the Galaxy S II with an incremental hardware bump and numerous software feature additions. The Galaxy S III is expected to be priced at Rs 39,900, though we are yet to hear the official price from Samsung. In the meanwhile, read on for my first impressions.

The Galaxy S III is the first smartphone to use Samsung’s Exynos quad-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz and a 4.8-inch 1280×720 pixel HD Super AMOLED display. Other specs include 1GB of RAM, 8-megapixel rear and 2-megapixel front cameras, Wi-Fi Direct, NFC and a massive 2,100 mAh battery. Impressive.

The specs might be just an incremental upgrade but the real magic lies in all the software work that Samsung has done on top of Android ICS 4.0. One of the most unique features would be what Samsung is calling the eye tracker, which utilizes the front camera to detect whether the user is looking at the phone or not. This feature would come in handy especially while reading considering all phones usually turn off the display once the preset time elapses.

Samsung also has an Apple Siri like voice assistant called S-Voice. One can set the phone to keep listening for voice commands and activate S-Voice without touching the phone by speaking out one of the four pre-defined voice commands – “Hi Galaxy” being one of them.

There are many other software touches like a feature that recognizes people in a photograph that are already present on the user’s social networking profiles and gives the user the option to mail the photographs directly to them. And then comes the camera itself, which does face zoom, burst mode and smart shot selector, most of which are present on the HTC One X too.

One feature that I’d probably end up using the most would be the smart dialer that lets users call someone while replying to one of their texts by lifting the phone and holding it against the ear.

The one area where the Galaxy S III doesn’t impress is the design and its continued use of plastic. Samsung might market it as a premium finish but it remains plastic and feels like plastic too. Yes, the Galaxy S III is light weight but it also feels hollow at the same time.

The Galaxy S III will compete with the HTC One X, both of which boast similar specs and would be priced close to each other. Choosing between the two is going to be very difficult. While the One X scores higher on design and looks, the Galaxy S III has a slight edge when it comes to the brand strength, battery and some of the software tweaks.

Stay tuned for our complete coverage of the Galaxy S III launch all day today.

Samsung’s Galaxy S III India launch is just four days away and we are getting more information about the launch details. The latest tidbit comes from Flamboyz, which has its hands on the coupons Samsung is sending to those who had pre-booked the Galaxy S III.

According to the coupon, the Galaxy S III will be available on May 31 itself but with a caveat. Samsung would only have stocks of the device in Marble White on the day of launch. Those who have pre-booked the Galaxy S III in Pebble Blue can either pick up the Marble White variant or wait till the second week of June when the Pebble Blue version is expected to be available.

We are always fascinated how companies in India expect people to pre-book a device by paying a token amount without revealing the exact price that they are supposed to pay. Also, in our experience, those who pre-book a device end up paying higher than the street price that other retailers would eventually sell the device.

Have you pre-booked the Galaxy S III? If so, what are your thoughts about this practice? Let us know in the comments.

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Samsung will be hosting a press conference in New Delhi on May 31 to launch the Galaxy S III in India but the smartphone is likely to be available a week later. Multiple sources have told BGR India that the Galaxy S III will be available on store shelves around June 8. Even online retailers are expecting units to be available for shipping from June 8 onwards.

We are also hearing that the Galaxy S III will be priced at Rs 39,990. This is likely to be the MRP and not the street price. However, considering the high profile nature of the Galaxy S III, we cannot confirm whether the phone will retail at Rs 39,990 for the first few weeks or will it, like all other phones, have a different market operating price as soon as it is launched. At the moment, Samsung is taking pre-bookings for the Galaxy S III and is offering a free Bluetooth headset for those who commit Rs 2,000 to reserve their unit.

The Galaxy S III will compete with the HTC One X, which was launched in India for Rs 37,899 and is now retailing at about Rs 36,000. Samsung might just put a premium on the Galaxy S III, considering the success of the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Note as well as its marketing muscle, which would easily overshadow what HTC has done so far for the One X. Ideally, HTC could gain some additional sales were it to slash the price of the One X but that is unlikely to happen.

Samsung and its Galaxy S III have been in the news all day and for the right reasons. First came the news about the Galaxy S III crossing 9 million pre-orders followed by Samsung starting to take pre-orders for it in India. Now Stuff magazine’s Indian edition is claiming that Samsung would launch the phone in India on May 31. Read on.

They claim to have received an invitation from Samsung. We believe them, though we haven’t been able to confirm the launch date ourselves. Samsung is likely to host the launch press conference in New Delhi considering the city was a part of the 10 cities world tour signifying countries that would get the Samsung Galaxy S III in the first wave.

Samsung sends us the invite. It’s official – Galaxy S3 India launch on 31st May!

— Stuff India (@stuff_india) May 18, 2012