[Rumor] Galaxy S4 Will Come in Two Variants; US = Snapdragon 600 & Europe = Exynos 5

[dgstorm]

Here's a disturbing rumor for you Wednesday afternoon. Supposedly, according to a source at JP Morgan, the Samsung Galaxy S IV will be coming in two different flavors. The European version will come with the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa-Core Chip, while the North American version will instead come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chip. Here's a quote with some of the details,

The latest snippet of info comes from a Taiwan-based analyst of the JPMorgan brokerage firm. In a note to clients concerning TSMC (the chip foundry that manufactures Qualcomm’s chipsets), Rick Hsu says that the he expects Samsung to offer at least two distinct versions of the Galaxy S4. One version will be equipped with the Samsung-made Exynos 5 Octa processor and will be made available in the European markets. The other version, bound for North America, will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor.

While this news is obviously disappointing to U.S. and Canadian consumers, this would be exciting news for European consumers. However, it's also possible this info is completely bogus. It flies in the face of several previous rumors that Samsung has delayed the launch of the Exynos 5 for a future device. In one regard it is a move that Samsung has done before. In fact, the SGS3 is a perfect example in which Samsung brought the Qualcomm version to North America, but brought the Exynos version to everyone else. We suppose that this could be true if Samsung is simply having yield issues with the chip and had to limit it to certain global markets. We certainly are crossing our fingers that this intel is wrong.

Of course we will be watching this closely for any new leads and report back ASAP!

Source: AndroidAuthority

 

[jseah]

I thought I had read that the problems Samsung have been having with the Exynos 5 chip wasn't the yield, but rather was problems with power consumption.

 

[dgstorm]

I thought I had read that the problems Samsung have been having with the Exynos 5 chip wasn't the yield, but rather was problems with power consumption.

That's the previous rumor I referenced in the story, which is why we aren't buying this intel.

 

[hotice]

I thought the problem was LTE compatibility issues.

Why would this be disappointing for North American customers? I'm in the US and would rather have the S4 600 version. Performance will be excellent, battery life probably better, and Qualcomm just has better experience with radios and has such power efficient ones.

In the case the the GSIII I think the NA customers definitely made out on the deal - not even talking about the RAM. The Tegra 3 is slower than the dual core S4 for a lot of things and it's 40nm vs 28nm for the S4 not to mention the integrated and power efficient LTE chipset in the S4. That was really the first LTE chipset that made LTE actually good (because of battery drain) in a phone.

 

[cybertec69]

I thought the problem was LTE compatibility issues.

Why would this be disappointing for North American customers? I'm in the US and would rather have the S4 600 version. Performance will be excellent, battery life probably better, and Qualcomm just has better experience with radios and has such power efficient ones.

In the case the the GSIII I think the NA customers definitely made out on the deal - not even talking about the RAM. The Tegra 3 is slower than the dual core S4 for a lot of things and it's 40nm vs 28nm for the S4 not to mention the integrated and power efficient LTE chipset in the S4. That was really the first LTE chipset that made LTE actually good (because of battery drain) in a phone.

I second that, the exynos 5 is still an unknown in regards to power efficiency and LTE compatibility. The Qualcomm chips have worked quite well in power efficiency and lte radio frequency. If Samsung thought it's chip is not ready for prime time yet, it would be a wise decision financially and PR wise to go with the solution that works, especially if you are planning to flood the market with millions of devices, the last thing they need is millions of owners having issues with their new flagship device.

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