When we talk about upcoming devices, there’s no denying that Samsung’s latest and greatest is going to be watched closely by Android fans. Not only that but, the Android news right up until it’s launch is going to be filled with rumors and leaks. Information is going to come one drip at a time and for a lot of people, that’s pretty exciting, the guessing and the prediction is what builds our anticipation about a device and gets us excited for things to come.
If you’re the type of person that likes rumors and enjoys hearing about something new then you’re going to really like what the internet has dug up for us today. Over at GLBenchmark, a Samsung smartphone that has all the marks of a Galaxy S variant headed for Korea has been spotted with some interesting specs. A Samsung device with the model number of SHV-E300S, which is said to be the Korean model number for the S IV has hit the benchmarking database. There’s absolutely nothing to confirm that this is the Galaxy S IV but, a number of details in it point to that being the case.
The screen resolution is listed as 1920 x 1080, which is pretty much a no-brainer for the Galaxy S IV at this point, the screen size isn’t released in benchmarks. What is perhaps a little bizarre, besides the lack of the Exynos 5 “Octa”, is the inclusion of a Snapdragon S4 Pro. We’re not sure why Samsung would want to go with such a processor but, the clock is listed at 1.9 Ghz a core so, there’s that. Why wouldn’t Samsung want to stick with one of their Exynos processors? Why not the Octa? Well, the Exynos 5 Octa was announced at CES and with no prototype smartphone running the chip, it’s perhaps not ready for mass-production. The Exynos 5450, said to be the quad-core variant of the Cortex A15 5250 in the Samsung Chromebook and the Nexus 10, hasn’t been announced yet, either. Which could suggest that Samsung might be struggling to deliver their own chips in large numbers, going with a Qualcomm chip would lift the pressure and allow Samsung to focus on other elements of the device.
Besides, if this thing is coupled with 2GB of RAM, a 1.9 Ghz quad-core processor should help to destroy everything else out there, which would be an excellent bit of marketing for Samsung. With clock-speeds that high, the numbers definitely speak for themselves, and in the results the SHV-E300S did more than hold it’s own. In offscreen 3D performance it logged 41.3 fps and 39.4 fps in onscreen. The HTC Butterfly – aka the Droid DNA – managed a mediocre 29.7 and 28.1 fps, respectively. That’s a pretty big gap and with Android 4.2.1 onboard, the device – whether it is the S IV or not – should be up-to-date, at least until Google I/O anyway.
The device is listed as heading to SK Telecom in Korea, with LTE coming along for the ride, and we should hear more about the device very soon.
[Source: GLBenchmark]