Samsung and Apple are gearing up for the epic smartphone battle of the year with their flagship Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5, despite no official word being out yet about their specs or release date.

The iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3 are by far the most anticipated smartphones of 2012. And since Samsung’s Galaxy S2 beat Apple’s iPhone 4S by bagging the coveted “best smartphone” award at MWC 2012, there is no doubt that Apple will try to hit back with iPhone 5.

Rumors are swirling that the Galaxy S3 is now set most likely to debut in summer, while Apple’s iPhone 5 will hit the market probably at the beginning of fall.

The S3 is expected to have a bigger screen than the one S2 holds, or about 5-inches with an AMOLED Plus display (1280x720 pixels resolution). The Samsung device is also expected to pack 8-megapixel camera that will be able to capture 60 fps HD video. On the other hand, iPhone 5 is expected to come with a Quantum Dot LED edge-to-edge display.

In terms of processor, the Galaxy S3 is expected to pack a 1.8GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM, while the iPhone 5 will probably be powered by a 1.2-to-1.5 GHz quad-core A6 chip with 1GB of RAM.

Last, but not least, the newest Galaxy could be even slimmer than its predecessor which now measures only 8.5mm in thickness and will most likely come out with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS.