Samsung Hercules will tip up in September

KOREAN SMARTPHONE MAKER Samsung will launch a variant of the Samsung Galaxy S II in the US called the Samsung Hercules.

Samsung will launch the Hercules on the T-Mobile network in the US, but it is unclear whether the smartphone will then make its way to the UK.

According to rumours, the handset will have a 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon APQ8060 Hercules processor instead of the Samsung Exynos chip in the original Galaxy S II, plus 1GB of RAM, 16GB flash storage, a 4.5in super AMOLED Plus touchscreen, an 8MP camera with HD 1080p video capture, MHL support and NFC. It will run the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system.

On the outside, Samsung's new handset looks like a cross between the Galaxy S II and Google's Nexus S, which was manufactured by Samsung.

The smartphone, which is penciled in for launch on 26 September, is apparently pretty fast and should retail SIM-free at about $300. µ