News - Samsung Galaxy S4 launch and release dates revealed

[flearider]

I'm still on an S2, which is great but I will be coming out of contract in the next 12 months. This is so far the front runner. Interesting to see how this stacks up against the google nexus 4, and what my friendly price-cutters (the customer retention department) can do. I'm paying 15 quid a month for my S2 over a 2 year contract. Not shabby at all!

6 months into my s3 contract so will be a while .. but @£21 a month it's all good heres looking towards the s5 ...lol

[benegerton1985]

It's only a phone? I don't mean to sound so pedantic but when is the stupidity of the 'phone wars' going to end?

[genkifd]

wow 8 cores - but what for? specs are really impressive. pitty wont be upgrading my gs3 anytime this year

[cassist]

8-core cpu and gpu? That would really be overkill....

The 8 core GPU isn't that much of an overkill, tegra 4 will gett many more, as for the cpu cores there isn't any infromation on how good these cores are.

[3dcandy]

The 8 core GPU isn't that much of an overkill, tegra 4 will gett many more, as for the cpu cores there isn't any infromation on how good these cores are.

I lumped them together...lol
Plenty of info out there, it's 4 A15 cores and 4 A9 cores in ARM's BIG.little design, so the OS sees 4 cores.

[Lord Midas]

Just because people can't afford to (or are locked into 24 month contracts) upgrade every year, doesn't mean that companies shouldn't release new models every year. I bet there are load of people who's contracts are up in a couple of months and will be chomping at the bit to get their hands on this baby.

8 cores is overkill. But so is 300bhp in a front wheel drive hatchback. You wouldn't complain if you had it though

[crossy]

It's only a phone? I don't mean to sound so pedantic but when is the stupidity of the 'phone wars' going to end?

Not sure what you mean by this - the "wars" part seems to imply that this is a response to someone else's device. Sure, the HTC One X+ has got some saying that it's the new leader (better than the S3) but sales figures would surely indicate that the S3's got plenty of life left in it.

Personally, (SIM free phone!) unless there's something really special then I'll be skipping the S4/13 and staying with my S3. That's doing everything I want, in the way I want, and it's not annoying me - so why change?

But, as said earlier, the S5 might be a different ball game, and worth a pre-order!

[TooNice]

I also see fast cycles as a good thing. There is always someone looking buy a new device since no everyone buys their device at the same time as everyone else, and having shorter cycles means not having to wait as long to get something slightly/somewhat better. That's a great thing, well, unless you can't put up with the thought that your device is no longer the king of the hill. But that shouldn't matter, as long as it performs as you expect when you bought it.

[Andaho]

Grrr, stupid size screen!.... why don't they just release a 40" version and get all this bigger over time size crap out of the way.

It's a small tablet, not a phone!

[3dcandy]

and for the person who wishes a smaller device there will be a mini version....

[kingpotnoodle]

+1 to this. The S3 was so ahead of the game and still riding high, Samsung should have gone for a July/August launch.

It wasn't that ahead, reasonable dual/quad CPU but A9 based (depending on country) but only 1GB RAM in most versions, most versions also not supporting LTE and limited at 21.1 HSPA. The GPUs used are only so-so. It's well beaten on many metrics by the Nexus 4, their own Note II and several other handsets out soon, it's basically falling into the mid-range spec arena. March is the best to release to stay ahead of the pack, leaving it until August would mean their main flagship handset falling quite behind (the Note II isn't for everyone because of size) so they need an S4 out.

Samsung (unlike some companies we could mention) seem to want to hold onto their lead by keeping pushing forward. The S3/S4 are also halo products promoting the rest of the range.

[Brewster0101]

It wasn't that ahead, reasonable dual/quad CPU but A9 based (depending on country) but only 1GB RAM in most versions, most versions also not supporting LTE and limited at 21.1 HSPA. The GPUs used are only so-so. It's well beaten on many metrics by the Nexus 4, their own Note II and several other handsets out soon

You may want to check those launch dates compared to the S3 , the S3 was released a number of months before any of those mentioned phones - ergo ahead of the game.

[AlexKitch]

I don't understand the obsession with cores on smartphones. Unless you're doing seriously intensive productivity tasks, it's just not necessary at all. Not even for games.

Give me 2 cores instead, and double the battery life in doing so.

[watercooled]

Doesn't work anywhere near as linearly as that; cores in mobile SoCs are very aggressively power gated and scaled, so removing half the cores wouldn't half SoC power usage, and that's ignoring the rest of the power-hungry parts of the system, like the screen, radios, etc.

And just to reiterate what I posted earlier, this is only an 8 core CPU in the same way Tegra 3 is a 5 core CPU, the difference in naming is largely marketing. 4 of each A7 and A15 is said to increase efficiency/battery life, at the expense of a bit of die space.

@kinpotnoodle: Do you know anywhere that compares GPS used on devices? It's something I'd pay attention to but it seems to be neglected in the majority of reviews.

[kingpotnoodle]

You may want to check those launch dates compared to the S3 , the S3 was released a number of months before any of those mentioned phones - ergo ahead of the game.

It wasn't that far ahead when released, 1GB RAM was well past becoming standard (Galaxy Nexus and others had it in end 2011) and the CPU/GPU/storage/radio/screen is similar to the other high end handsets that quarter.

HTC One X - released May 2012 - http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_one_x-4320.php
Galaxy S3 - released May 2012 - http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i930...s_iii-4238.php

Some markets (i.e. Korea and some US) got a better version with a Krait CPU, LTE and/or 2GB RAM but the UK version was very normal high end release for 2Q 2012.

The S3 is most certainly not at the top of the tree now, it's being superseded. Still a great handset but it's waning. The Nexus 4 and Note 2 are just the first in the wave, there is handsets from Sony, HTC, LG, Nokia etc that are equivalent or superior specs.

Samsung need a successor to the S4 out in March or their main mass-market flagship will suddenly be looking rather old-hat. August is way way to distant.

Kudos to Samsung for keeping their lead with aggressive product launches, the S4 spec seems more aggressive than the S3 spec did.

[kingpotnoodle]

@kinpotnoodle: Do you know anywhere that compares GPS used on devices? It's something I'd pay attention to but it seems to be neglected in the majority of reviews.

Sadly no, they all just seem to do a passing "it locked on quickly enough and I went for a drive with Google Maps" type comment but I've not seen a good comparison of reception indoor/outdoor and lock-on speed, especially without A-GPS masking the lock.

I might well have missed such a review though, it'd be interesting to see. AFAIK much depends on the aerial position... according to Anandtech's testing on the Transformer tab (http://www.anandtech.com/show/5285/a...ssue-explained) anyway.