Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review - Part 1
by Brian Klug on April 24, 2013 12:01 AM ESTCPU Performance
For our CPU analysis we're left with our usual browser based benchmarks. Again this isn't an ideal list of tests but it's the best we've got for now. Where necessary we'll show results using both stock and Chrome browsers. We did notice a single case of thermal based throttling under SunSpider 0.9.1 (the benchmark alone is ine, but running it after a bunch of others caused throttling), so we're once again presenting results in our standard test environment as well as inside of a freezer to show peak performance. Although the Galaxy S 4 managed to throttle in one of our tests, the device never felt all that warm to the touch. We could be seeing some of the same aggressively set thermal governors that we saw back with the Nexus 4. It's also worth pointing out that we're simply in an era of pushing the limits of just how fast you can go at 28nm LP in many of these smartphones. The mobile SoC vendors also need to do a better job of power management, enabling controlled bursting to these high frequency states vs. sustaining the higher frequencies until there's a serious enough thermal issue that the CPU cores have to throttle themselves significantly.
Under Kraken in particular we see a measurable improvement in performance over the 1.7GHz S600 used in the HTC One. Qualcomm still can't attain the peak performance of ARM's Cortex A15, but once again we're looking at a much lower power profile.
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casteve - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Thanks for the review - I look forward to Part 2. Also, it's good to know the highway is clear so you can run away from the killer bee swarms.gnx - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
A request to Brian Klug, and Anandtech!Any chance you'd start implementing comparisons of heat measurements for smartphones. Some of these latest flagships have so much horsepower in the them, the back cover heats up quite a bit under heavy use (not only games, but also navigation). It's almost like early light-n-thin laptops that became unusable cause of the heat on the palmrest or underbelly. Just hardware wise, such heat is detrimental to the phone itself in the long term. It could be a problem with last years flagships, so I'm guess this years ones could be more. A more strict analysis/measurement of how these smartphones manage and dissipate heat would be greatly appreciated!
Arbie - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
I'm amazed that people want anything OTHER than plastic in a phone. If you go with anything metallic you have to jump through major technical hoops to get good reception. Why even consider spending all that design money, not to mention making the many unseen compromises that this involves?For me this phone hits all the right points, including these two key items:
• SD card so I can easily swap media sets in and out. Internal fixed memory can't begin to compete with with the speed, capacity, and convenience of micro/SD chips.
• Replaceable battery , so that when it eventually dies I DON'T have to send the phone in for service.
hyperdoggy - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
nothing wrong with plastic, as long as it isn't fisher price plastic.eallan - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
which it isdyc4ha - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Internal memory is much faster than microsd, fact. It is more convenient if everything is in the same place rather than having to swap things out, no? If you really need 32/64GB+ then sure microsd might be better for you, but with USB OTG this is not a big problem at all.sigmatau - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
Why did they have to use the cheapest plastic found in 25 cent toys from a gumball machine? I have a plastic phone, a Nokia 900, which kills this phone and any Samsung phone made in feel and durability.superflex - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
The GS4 is evolutionary, not revolutionary.Reminds me of a Cupertino company and their latest phone.
Oh, how the Sammy trolls berated them for that.
HTC One FTW
Shlong - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
And the HTC One is evolutionary (compared to HTC One X).berantle - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Compared to the HTC One X (and the rest), the HTC One is revolutionary in at least a 3 ways.1. The front-facing stereo speakers. If it was evolutionary, it would have been making a better quality rear-ward facing single speaker.
2. The 4Mp UltraPixel camera. If it was evolutionary, it would have followed the herd towards 13MP camera and even smaller pixel-size sensors than the 8MP camera.
3. The HTC Zoe (which I understand is short for "Zoetrope"). Automatically packaging short movies and photos taken into a simple 30 second presentation. You don't find that with other phones as best as I can see to-date. This is a big change from how it is done by cameras. Reading the reviews of the S4 here and elsewhere, what the S4 is doing seems like a belated response after seeing what the HTC One could do. A lot of people were caught flatfooted by what the HTC Zoe could do.
These are 3 main revolutionary things that the HTC One has done. The S4? I can't see anything revolutionary. The Samsung Galaxy S4 is all about putting everything but the kitchen sink into it. If Samsung could shoehorn the kitchen sink into the S4, they would do it too - just to boast that it has a kitchen sink and no other phone has it.