Samsung’s hype machine has been working hard recently, as the Korean company does its best to maintain the high degree of anticipation surrounding the Galaxy S III smartphone.
The cryptic www.tgeltaayehxnx.com website (that’s “the next galaxy,” anagram fans) appeared over the weekend with a timer set to reach zero at midday GMT and with a little over an hour until it expired, the strain of millions eagerly awaiting the big reveal saw the website begin to fall over.
Long loading times and even the occasional time-out, didn’t bode well for anyone wanting to be first to see just how much Samsung would show the week before the launch event.
Sure enough, as the timer ran out, nothing happened and the site froze attempting to deliver the payoff. As we all know, patience is a virtue, and after a few minutes it was all back on track — you even get to solve the anagram.
Was it worth the wait? Well, that depends on what you expected. What we’ve been given is a one-minute teaser trailer for the event more than the phone.
It takes us on a journey through the cosmos, telling us that “truly smart technology becomes a natural part of life” and that “a galaxy fits perfectly into [our] hand,” before ending with the cheapest of cheap shots you’ve ever seen.
We won’t spoil it here, but when it does happen, we’d hope for snorts of derision rather than the cheers Samsung is clearly expecting. It’s also more than a little ironic, as the galaxy looks like shots of a Mac OS X desktop, and Samsung’s whole approach to the S III’s launch comes straight from Apple’s big book of successful marketing strategies.
The only vague hint concerning the phone is the phrase “your view of the world grows ever wider,” which suggests the phone will indeed have a big screen. Tell us something we didn’t expect, Samsung.
A 16-second version of the teaser, without the rabble-rousing, has also appeared on Samsung Mobile’s Facebook page.
Samsung’s event will take place on May 3 in London.