News - Samsung Galaxy S4: no octa-core Exynos for the UK

[watercooled]

Both devices is very possible IMO.

@kingpotnoodle: As has been mentioned already, it could be something to do with LTE support and/or ensuring redundancy, not putting all your eggs in one basket is a good thing for a high-volume flagship device. However, Samsung have their own LTE baseband, as used in the Korean and LTE International models of the S3 for example, so I assume they wouldn't forgo LTE even if they want to avoid a Qualcomm baseband for the Exynos version.

It would be a bit disappointing if the Exynos version doesn't have LTE, but then it might be difficult to distinguish between the two in one market if they both have it?

Cross post edit: (Actually posted about this in my first post but edited it out by mistake): The Adreno 320 is already in fairly common use, and while it's by no means slow, the Exynos version should have far more GPU grunt (especially given the 1920x1080 resolution). Interestingly, the Mali GPU in the Exynos dual is meant to be faster than even the Quad's PowerVR. Think I read something about that GPU being phased out in favour of the new Mali line though, and maybe they weren't ready in time or something?

[TooNice]

Different, processor, with/without LTE. I can deal with those differences, but I wonder if they are going to once again make the batteries incompatible on some models (the Japanese S3 battery is incompatible with the International version and vice-versa which is a bit annoying).

[ajones]

Whats stopping me buying this phone off ebay from a US phone importer? I do all the time with cameras, tablets and my current phone. Only issue is I need a UK plug converter.

Just make sure the US version supports the correct UK LTE bands for your operator. LTE@ AWS or 700MHz are useless in Europe.

...Note II is LTE capable and uses Exynos in UK doesn't it?

I don't think it's LTE...

You have to be careful with Sammy devices and LTE. The standard SIII available in the UK does not have a chipset that supports LTE (or even DC-HSDPA for that matter). You have to get the LTE variant for that (available only from EE if memory serves).

[watercooled]

There is an 'International' Note 2 with LTE support, I'm not sure if it's currently sold in the UK though.

[keithwalton]

Make that one less pre-order for sammy, i'm not to fussed about the cpu but i've had enough of the adreno junk to last a life time, it's upto Qualcomm as to what version of android you can run not the people that actually make your phone.

[watercooled]

Any elaboration/references for that? AFAIK even Android KLP has been shown working on S3 SoCs for example.

[ajones]

Make that one less pre-order for sammy, i'm not to fussed about the cpu but i've had enough of the adreno junk to last a life time, it's upto Qualcomm as to what version of android you can run not the people that actually make your phone.

Since when does QC dictate the OS on a phone? There's more than one chipset vendor you know and more to a phone than the chipset.

[kingpotnoodle]

@kingpotnoodle: As has been mentioned already, it could be something to do with LTE support and/or ensuring redundancy, not putting all your eggs in one basket is a good thing for a high-volume flagship device. However, Samsung have their own LTE baseband, as used in the Korean and LTE International models of the S3 for example, so I assume they wouldn't forgo LTE even if they want to avoid a Qualcomm baseband for the Exynos version.

If it was an "all eggs, 1 basket" avoidance tactic then wouldn't it be better to just outsource Exynos production to TSMC/GlobalFoundries or something rather than complicate the range and have to use a competitors chips in your device. Anyway surely Samsung don't have all their fabs in only a small geographic area, for a company of their size that would be risk taking of a high order given their home region's inclination towards natural disasters (i.e. the recent Thailand hard drive oops) or potentially destructive wars!

[watercooled]

Good point, but Samsung don't seem to like outsourcing Exynos production, a lot of their devices use SoCs from a number of other companies, including Qualcomm, Broadcom, ST-Ericsson, maybe more. It could be cost reasons, porting to another fab is far from free, and they've been on ITRS nodes while the other fabs have been using half-nodes which could complicate things further. Samsung are now at 28nm on the Octa though, so that's presumably less of a reason. Still, it might be cheaper to buy off-the-shelf SoC from other companies in some cases, especially for lower-volume parts.

And no, they don't have all the fabs in one area, they have them in both Korea and USA.

I'm not sure why they keep choosing different SoCs, I'm just theorising.

[WritersBlock]

Well, now to find out if that chip is good enough - and more importantly will remain good enough.

[keithwalton]

Any elaboration/references for that? AFAIK even Android KLP has been shown working on S3 SoCs for example.

Most S3's are Exynos chips that run mali 400 not QC's and there adrenos.

To clarify where i'm coming from, I have a Sony Xperia S which runs a QC MSM8660 SOC which has Adreno 220 graphics.

This device became a target build of AOSP (like a nexus) for a few months however the project stalled because QC kept there drivers closed source and wouldn't release a Jelly Bean compatible driver at the time.
Eventually the project was abandoned with the note that it can't proceed any further without adreno drivers.
This hesitance also stalled the development of Cyangomod.
They have now released JB drivers (since the chip is used is so many other devices) but older chips / phones that could run JB are not going to get it because they don't have the adreno drivers. JB is also as far as the adreno 220 is going they wont be releasing KLP drivers.

It only takes one chip on a phone to be incompatible and a new os version goes out of the window.

There are test builds of 4.1.2 from Sony where the cellular radio doesn't work! Which guess what, is a QC driver problem!

[watercooled]

I meant Snapdragon S3, not Galaxy S3 BTW.

http://androidheadlines.com/wp-conte...sony-lt30i.jpg

[OilSheikh]

So, why can't Samsung release S4 with 8 cores for everyone ?

[keithwalton]

I meant Snapdragon S3, not Galaxy S3 BTW.

http://androidheadlines.com/wp-conte...sony-lt30i.jpg

lt30i is the xperia T, which is an s4 based snappie with adreno 225.

They may have changed there tune a bit since the nexus 4 is s4 based.

Edit - From what i've read the exynos 5 octa has limited lte support if any at all. It could be that it doesn't support all the radio bands so they don't want to have to sell network dependant models. Eg Iphone 5 is only going to work on EE and Three's 4G

[watercooled]

Yeah I'm not overly sure about the backwards support deal TBH. Still, I thought the T was lt30p, and the lt30i the TL or something? Details seem fairly scarce on the net but the T is mentioned in articles where the lt30i is an unknown?

Edit for above: It seems there are two models (not certain if I got the modem names correct) but they only seem to differ in that one supports LTE. They both appear to use S4 (different versions) and Adreno 225. Presumably the 220 reference in that picture was an erroneous detection by the software.

The Exnos Octa, like all previous Exnos SoCs AFAIK, has no on-chip baseband. It needs to be paired with another chip, e.g. an MDM from Qualcomm or one of their own parts I mentioned earlier. Both can support multiband LTE, so that shouldn't be an issue. It doesn't look like the Snapdragon 600 has an on-board baseband either, so they're both two-chip solutions.

[Noli]

Just so everyone is clear on it, the octacore is a marketing misnomer in as much as it will never run 8 cores concurrently, only ever 4 at a time. Either 4x A15 cores for performance or 4x A7 cores for power saving. This is ARM's big.LITTLE design.

Like any crappy android apps could effectively use 8 cores when most desktop pc programs can't....
(Don't get me wrong I have android and love highly threaded programs on multi-core cpus but it's so rare, really)

'Octacore' just sounds very impressive (and maybe it is), but it runs no more cores than the competition.