The Samsung Galaxy S3 was pompously presented in London last week and, while some rumors and leaks preceding its unveiling were spot on, others worked to raise expectations to near feature pitch level, which subsequently disappointed more than a few would-be fans. For example, you probably all remember a “leak” from back in March, which showed what we thought was the S3 in a “press photo”.

The leaked design bared little resemblance to how the S3 turned out to look after all, but it now seems that the photo was in fact of a Samsung phone due to be released this year. The SHV-E170K was just confirmed as hitting South Korea later this month and, while we can’t be 100% certain that we are looking at the exact same device, the newly unveiled phone looks a lot like the one pictured in that March image.

Powered by a dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 (MSM8960) processor, the SHV-E170K can be called the Galaxy S3’s “baby sister”, as it’s a bit smaller, comes with slightly less impressive specs and, if I may say so, looks a bit more fashionable.

The 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display sported by the SHV-E170K features a qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels) and the rest of the features known at this time include a 5 MP rear-facing shooter, a 1.3 MP front-facing camera, the running of Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich with TouchWiz UI on top and 4G LTE speeds from Korean carrier KT.

The spec sheet is not official, but a GLBenchmark test just about confirms the phone as coming with all these features. As for RAM, ROM, battery capacity and other things that could make you decide to either go for this device or pass on it, these are still unknown, but should be made official soon enough.

Neither the official release date, nor the pricing have been announced, but we know that the SHV-E170K will hit Korea by the end of May and we are almost sure that the phone will never see the light of day outside Asia.

All in all, the Samsung SHV-E170K looks like a device to perfectly fit that gap between the Galaxy S2 and the S3, or between mid-range specs and high-end features, and it might become popular enough if Sammy will make it available for a decent price. What do you guys think? Would you be tempted to go for the SHV-E170K if it were to ever come to the US, Canada or Europe? What would be a fair price for the phone? Do you like its design better than the one featured by the S3? Hit us up with a comment and let us know!