Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review - Part 1
by Brian Klug on April 24, 2013 12:01 AM ESTGPU Performance
Both CPU and GPU clocks are higher on Samsung's version of the Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064AB). While the Snapdragon 600 used in HTC's One (APQ8064T) features a max GPU frequency of 400MHz, in the Galaxy S 4 the max frequency moves up to 450MHz. The increase in max frequency alone is modest (~12.5%), but the gains in GLBenchmark are far more pronounced for whatever reason.
As always, we'll start with low level analysis beginning with GLBenchmark's fill rate test:
Interestingly enough, fill rate is actually lower than on the HTC One. With so many variables at work here it's difficult to say exactly why this is, but the lowest hanging fruit is to blame it on memory bandwidth differences. Without getting inside the Galaxy S 4 (or more extensive poking around) it's unclear what speed Samsung is running its memory at, which could explain the differences here. We tried tossing the Galaxy S 4 in the freezer and re-running the test but performance didn't improve substantially. Note that GLB's fill rate benchmark is the only one that did not show the Galaxy S 4 ahead of HTC's One in raw performance.
The low level triangle tests all show significant performance gains over the only other Snapdragon 600 based phone we have (HTC One). Again, I'm not really sure what's going on here with APQ8064AB but the gains here are greater than what clock speed alone can be responsible for. Samsung could be running at higher GPU frequencies more aggressively than HTC or it could have software advantages (a newer Adreno driver perhaps?) or there could be more to this APQ8064AB mystery than we realize.
Egypt HD delivers a fairly sane number however. The Galaxy S 4 manages to outperform the HTC One by around 17% here. Again it's unclear why we're seeing greater performance than clock scaling alone would provide but the net is that the Galaxy S 4 does deliver better GPU performance than other Snapdragon 600 based devices today.
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darwinosx - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Very few people have seen a Nexus phone or pure Android so its not correct to assume they prefer Touchwiz.nitenichiryu1 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
i agree! i actually prefer vanilla android to all the companies' versions of android.seamonkey79 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Won't buy a phone without a removable battery. After two iPhone batteries and my friend's One X battery crapped out, it simply isn't worth it. Wouldn't mind a little bit better build from Samsung, but honestly my Note 2 is as good as my HTC Incredible was.Grandpa - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Wow. That's saying a lot. My old HTC Incredible had the most incredibly bad battery EVER. So bad I bought an iPhone with a terrific battery and lovin every minute of it.lilmoe - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
let me guess, part 2 is for the Exynos GT-I9500 version.....berantle - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Thanks for the review. I'll be going with the HTC One. It is a better fit for me and my phone usage. I really like the HTC One's front stereo speakers. The S4 has too many new features/functions that I have little interest in using.The removable battery of the S4 is not important to me because even having had phones with a removable battery, I never felt a need to swap it out. Much better to recharge using a recharging battery pack - it's universal for charging other portable devices, plus the current packs can store 3-4x the energy that the batteries fitted in the phones can store.
Don't need removable SD card feature. Backed up my contacts/data to the cloud and to the PC. Do that regularly. I don't use my phone as a dumping ground for my music and movie files. Those go into my phone selectively and actively managed as to what I want in my phone storage.
The camera in the phones. I don't use them to replace my normal cameras. It's for the occasional shot and these skew to more indoors than outdoors. Thus, the HTC One's camera makes a better fit for me than the S4 camera. In my brief use of an HTC One, I tried the HTC One in a close macro shot and liked the results very much.
Aluminium or Polycarbonate? I have no problems with polycarbonate if it is nicely done like the recent Nokia phones and the HTC One X/Butterfly phones. The feel of the S3 was offputting and since the S4 is more of the same, then, no thanks. Holding the aluminium-cased HTC One, the big difference in feel makes me abhor the S3's feel even more, what more the S4 which is supposed to be the same.
rohini - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
The SGS4 is surely a great smartphone but there are many other things which the buyers want from their smartphone. The aesthetics is the most important feature on the wish list of smartphone buyers. Samsung, you should know that people are now bored of your old plastic design. Why can't you come up with something made out of metal or glass or even sapphire?All Samsung has been doing for years is stuffing up its phones with the best in class hardware but forgot about what most of the persons like.
HTC One on the other hand is a an excellent example of innovation even though there are chances that it will fail to attract masses in the Indian market. http://goo.gl/VBNDG
nitenichiryu1 - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
Some have posted comments on how the S4 will have a locked bootloader (bummer), and that the HTC will be unlocked, but what about the recent article from engadget stating that it will change for the HTC, and most likely be locked. http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/15/htc-one-att-boo...teiglin - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
Skimming through the comments makes my head hurt. I wonder what percentage of idiotic commenters are marketers and what percent are legit fanboys. I hope they're mostly marketers; it's a bit scary to think that Samsung and HTC might have developed reality distortion fields that rival Apple's.Anyway, on the off chance you're still reading any of this garbage, Brian, I wanted to ask why you never do any reviews of custom ROMs/kernels. I realize this is a potential deathtrap of complication, so is it just that it's easier just to avoid even opening the door to it? I mean, the number of boneheaded manufacturer moves that can be fixed by some minor aftermarket tweaking is phenomenal: everything from silly button bindings (One) to janky design language (Touchwiz) to miserable screen calibration (Nexus 4) can be solved by spending 10-30 minutes on xda--and that's without even going into the less-stable areas or just-for-fun tweaks.
AndroidsFinest - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
I think I will wait to see what Google has to offer at Google I/O, if its just a revamped Nexus 4 than I might go for the HTC One. Samsung's plastic is getting a bit tiresome and off contract the 8 core international variant is extremely overpriced.