Despite being called as a direct successor to the original S Duos 2 phone, external and physical design of the model is identical to the original model, except for the menu button which is now replaced by the recent apps button and also placing emphasis on internal upgrades such as upgraded processor and an updated Android operating system.

Optionally, it can receive two calls simultaneously, but this requires divert-on-not-reachable to be set up on each number and is subject to availability from the carrier and may incur additional charges.

A limitation of the phone is that only one SIM can be active on UMTS (and therefore data) at a time and so it may be unsuitable for certain combinations of networks.

The S Duos 3 ships with Android 4.4.2 KitKat and Samsung's updated TouchWiz Essence UX user interface.

[3] The S Duos 3 adds some of the features of the Galaxy S4 such as Samsung proprietary widgets used by models bearing the same version of the OS.