Do you need something more powerful than the original Samsung Galaxy S, but you’re not ready for the big screen of the Galaxy S II? Then you’re part of an extremely specific market that Samsung nonetheless hopes to target with the Galaxy S Advance, an upgrade on the original that delivers a faster processor and more contemporary styling. After a few delays, the phone has popped up on UK retailer Clove with an expected ship date of March 26th. The price is £354.00 with taxes for an unlocked phone, making it about $550 USD.

That’s a lot to ask for a phone that’s using a lot of older tech. The biggest improvement over the Galaxy S (now almost two years old) is a dual-core 1.0Ghz processor, while the 4-inch screen, 1GB of RAM, and 5 megapixel camera stay the same. The phone uses Samsung’s standard Gingerbread-TouchWiz combination, which should run fine on 768MB of RAM. The 800×480 Super AMOLED screen gets something of a refresh, since it’s got a Galaxy Nexus-style concave curved glass panel. The connection is HSPA, not HSPA+.

We haven’t heard of the Galaxy S Advance making the jump to the Americas yet, though it’s certainly not impossible: it’s already made the rounds at the FCC. To be honest, a mild refresh of the Galaxy S isn’t really necessary with the US’ love affair with subsidized phones: the reduced price that the Advance would get wouldn’t be significantly lower than the Galaxy S II or other similarly-equipped high end phones. Even so, we’ll be waiting to see if it graces our fair shores.

[via Unwired View]