2012 certainly looks to be the year that we finally see some real advancements in CPUs and SoCs across our smartphones and tablets as oppose to the usual bump in clock-speeds or a differing GPU. With the Snapdragon S4 looking to be a powerful staple for manufacturers to use in their products throughout the year it would seem that Samsung – a company that makes it’s own processors and SoCs – would have to bring something fairly awesome to the table this time around.
The Verge have confirmed (thanks to sources familiar) that the Samsung Galaxy S III (it could be named anything, May 3rd will tell) will feature a powerful quad-core processor on-board but, only for the “global edition” of the phone, strongly suggesting that the phone’s CPU will take on other guises as it makes it’s world tour. Reasons for the change of CPU throughout World Markets may be, yet again, down to LTE meaning that the quad-core beast that will be used might not be ready for 4G just yet, much like it’s Tegra friend.
This is something that we may well come to see a lot of throughout 2012, with big advancements in processors but, wireless technology may well stand in the way somewhat. However, LTE’s support in these processors is surely to get better with time along with battery life notwithstanding. I, in the UK, don’t have access to LTE and I won’t do for quite some time, thanks to OFCOM, but if it means I’ll be treated to a quad-core Exynos then I might not feel so bad. Especially if it’s the oft-fabled, mythical Exynos 5250.