Samsung’s Galaxy Core Advance goes on sale for $390 this week, starting in Korea

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Core Advance in December of last year and, true to its word, the company is launching the budget 3G device this week. The phone goes on sale in Korea tomorrow (February 18) priced at 410,300 won, which is just under $390 — there’s no word on when it will make it overseas.

Update: Samsung tells us that the device “will be released in Europe and the U.S. in the coming months,” but the company hasn’t provided more specific details. The company also says an LTE version — which will be called the Galaxy Core 4G in some markets — will go on sale “across Europe as well as in Russia and select countries in Asia” at an unspecified date.

To recap the high-end points, the Galaxy Core sports a 4.7-inch screen and comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and physical keys. As we wrote when it was first announced, there’s not an awful lot to get excited about here — it is very much a lower-end version of the Galaxy S3, complete with a cheaper price tag.

Given that there is no support for LTE networks — an absolute must in Korea, let alone the West — we expect it to be focused very much on emerging market consumers; we’ve reached out to Samsung for details of when it will go on sale outside of Korea, and at what price.

To recap, the Galaxy Core advance is powered by a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and comes with 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal memory, and a microSD card slot that can accommodate up to 64GB more storage.

The rear-facing camera clocks in at five megapixels, with a 2,000 mAh battery keeping things going. The usual Samsung services are on tap, including S Voice, S Translator, Sound & Shot, Group Play and Easy Mode — while there’s support for NFC (S Beam), Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with GLONASS, and three physical keys.