News - Qualcomm confirms secret LG superphone has quad-core S4

[HEXUS]

The monster that officially didn't exist, now kinda does and, it'll pack a wallop.

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[Roobubba]

Rumours galore to go with a smattering of probable truth...! Could be a beast, though, interesting to see how this bad boy pans out!

[Brewster0101]

Does it also come with LG's rubbish software support ?

[Ciber]

Does it also come with LG's rubbish software support ?

Lets hope it's better. I have an LG phone and though the spec is good for the price it does seem to lock up and become unresponsive more than other phones. Some I think due to overheating and some due to software. The overheating may be due to software of course. Either way it sometimes it gets very warm and becomes unresponsive until either the battery runs out or I take the battery out. That said it's pretty rare and I'm basically happy with my choice. My brother has the Galaxy S2 and that has it's issues as well.

I'll be looking at future LG phones with a jaundiced eye from now on.

[Hicks12]

I think to much hate is on LG at the moment, their flagship phone the Optimus 2X still has no ICS in sight but its so undeserved... Samsung who also released a tegra 2 based phone along side their original galaxy S2 is known as the Galaxy R/Z and is the same bar the tegra 2 chip, the guys using the galaxy R have only just got ICS and that is because of some service centre accidently flashing a test ICS on a customers phone! No official release yet so a massive company that is doing extremely well and has been called amazing in releasing new updates cant even maintain a high end phone, LG made big losses and had to cut a crap load of staff from development which would make them slower to get ICS on our device.

TL DR Its Nvidias fault for being slow with drivers and having a closed source SoC. Alot of LG devices have been updated in time for ICS but those have no Tegra 2 chips.

I hope this is a good phone as LG certainly need a boost but im not sure how good qualcomm are for third party roms , id rather have cyanogen on my phone than OEMs as its normally rather poo and a waste of time/space.

[crossy]

I'm maybe being overly sceptical but that spec looks suspiciously like the one posit'd for the Samsung S3 at one point. That said, if LG do manage to deliver that spec (for a reasonable price) then that's going to be a nice "line leader" for their smartphones.

Not sure I'd swap my S3 in for it though, even though the quad-S4 will probably show my "slow" quad Exynos a clean pair of heels - LG's reputation for software upgrades (or rather not doing them) is a major turn off as far as I'm concerned.

Again, if this is delivered, then I'll welcome it - makes a two horse race for the title of "best Android phone" into a three-way (which is very good news for us consumers).

[addz17]

Lol! What software runs 4 threads at once on a phone? Solidworks, battlefield3? Was there not an article on hexus a few weeks ago explaining how pointless this is atm and how its basically a battery wasting gimmick?

[crossy]

Lol! What software runs 4 threads at once on a phone? Solidworks, battlefield3? Was there not an article on hexus a few weeks ago explaining how pointless this is atm and how its basically a battery wasting gimmick?

Please remember that the article in question was prompted by a "survey" from Intel (who were pushing their own single core platform) saying that even dual core for Android was a bit of a waste of time.

The flaw in the argument - as far as I can tell - is that it's based on how we use phones now, and with the rate of evolution in Android that's a shaky foundation. Smartphone software, like desktops, will continue to push the hardware boundaries. Best "justification" for quad at the moment that I've seen came on xda - namely that you can easily afford to throw two cores at the UI elements, leaving the other two for your apps. Which means that even if you've got unoptimised (/badly written - cough, cough, Adobe Flash for example) code then you as a user are guaranteed a smooth experience. It's a thin justification (hence the quotes) but there's some validity.

Besides, with larger screens, memories, etc - who's to say that something that can use four cores (some photo editing app, realtime voice dictation, etc) isn't just around the corner. Given the increasing number of quad devices - especially tablets where it seems to be de rigeur now - it'd be a sucker bet to say otherwise.

Oh, and to the "battery wasting gimmick" - yes, a quad probably will take more juice than a like-for-like dual or single core. That aside, my quad-core Samsung Galaxy S3 has a longer battery life than the single core Sony that it replaced. Okay, the Sammy also has a bigger battery, but it's also got a bigger screen to drive - which I'd strongly argue is going to hit the battery far harder than those two "extra" cores.

[Funkstar]

Oh, and to the "battery wasting gimmick" - yes, a quad probably will take more juice than a like-for-like dual or single core. That aside, my quad-core Samsung Galaxy S3 has a longer battery life than the single core Sony that it replaced. Okay, the Sammy also has a bigger battery, but it's also got a bigger screen to drive - which I'd strongly argue is going to hit the battery far harder than those two "extra" cores.

Unless you are using processor heavy software (bo they bladly written or just demanding), the most power sucking part of your handset is going to be the screen, then the radio (for mobile connection, wifi, GPS and bluetooth), then after that it'll probably be the processor.

I agree with you crossy, 2 years is a long time in the mobile space right now, software might not be taking advantage of quade core hardware right now, but i'm pretty sure it will in that time frame.

You also have to compare power requirements in a relative way. Yes you can compare a cutting edge quad with a similar dual or single core system, but you aslo have to compare it to previous dual or single ore designs. This years quad core will probably be more efficient than a two year old single core design. That's what really matters to users, how well does their new phone perform next to their old phone.

My One X is bigger, faster, clearer, thinner, and lasts longer than my old Desire. They could probably get it to last even longer with a different processor, but it works for me (and lots of others) as it is.

[3dcandy]

I agree with nearly all the points here, I use my S3 as my main device for everyday life. It's my phone, organiser, camera, mp3 player the lot...I can get about 8 hours heavy useage from it as long as I stay away from Facebook which sucks battery...hell it's even probably my primary web browsing device these days! Of course quad core is overkill, we can all see laggy Android apps and slow system performance but of course most of that is due to Android supporting far more hardware configs than iOS or WP7+. It's the long game though that I see as interesting, how far will we have come in 2 years which is how long I expect to keep the phone