Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review - Part 1
by Brian Klug on April 24, 2013 12:01 AM ESTGalaxy S 4 - Powered by a Better Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064AB)?
At a high level, Samsung's Galaxy S 4 integrates Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 SoC. From what Qualcomm told us about Snapdragon 600, we're dealing with four Krait 300 cores and an Adreno 320 GPU. The Krait 300 cores themselves are supposed to improve performance per clock over the original Krait CPU (Krait 200) through a handful of low level microarchitectural tweaks that we've gone through here. The Krait 300 design also allegedly improves the ability to run at higher frequencies without resorting to higher voltages. This isn't the first time we've talked about Snapdragon 600, but since then a few things have come to light.
Snapdragon 600 from HTC One - Chipworks
For starters, Chipworks got their hands on a Snapdragon 600 SoC (from an HTC One) and delayered the SoC. In its investigation, Chipworks discovered that Snapdragon 600 had the exact same die area as the previous generation Snapdragon S4 Pro (APQ8064). Also, although you'd expect APQ8064T markings on the chip itself, the part carried the same APQ8064 label as previous S4 Pro designs.
Avenger 2 Markings on Snapdragon 600 die from HTC One - Chipworks
Chipworks did note however that there were some subtle differences between a standard APQ8064 and the Snapdragon 600 SoC from the HTC One. The Snapdragon 600 from the One is labeled with an Avenger2 codename rather than Avenger, the latter was apparently present on prior APQ8064 designs. Chipworks also noticed differences in the topmost metal layer, although it's not clear whether or not they stopped there or found no differences in lower layers.
All of this points to a much more subtle set of physical differences between APQ8064 and the earliest Snapdragon 600s. Metal layer changes are often used to fix bugs in silicon without requiring a complete respin which can be costly and create additional delays. It's entirely possible that Krait 300 was actually just a bug fixed Krait 200, which would explain the identical die size and slight differences elsewhere.
That brings us to the Galaxy S 4. It's immediately apparent that something is different here because Samsung is shipping the Snapdragon 600 at a higher frequency than any other OEM. The Krait 300 cores in SGS4 can run at up to 1.9GHz vs. 1.7GHz for everyone else. Curiously enough, 1.9GHz is the max frequency that Qualcomm mentioned when it first announced Snapdragon 600.
Samsung is obviously a very large customer, so at first glance we assumed it could simply demand a better bin of Snapdragon 600 than its lower volume competitors. Looking a bit deeper however, we see that the Galaxy S 4 uses something different entirely.
APQ8064 from a Snapdragon 600 based HTC One - Chipworks
Digging through the Galaxy S 4 kernel source we see references to an APQ8064AB part. As a recap, APQ8064 was the first quad-core Krait 200 SoC with no integrated modem, more commonly referred to as Snapdragon S4 Pro. APQ8064T was supposed to be its higher clocked/Krait 300 based successor that ended up with the marketing name Snapdragon 600. APQ8064AB however is, at this point, unique to the Galaxy S 4 but still carries the Snapdragon 600 marketing name.
If we had to guess, we might be looking at an actual respin of the APQ8064 silicon in APQ8064AB. Assuming Qualcomm isn't playing any funny games here, APQ8064AB may simply be a respin capable of hitting higher frequencies. We'll have to keep a close eye on this going forward, but it's clear to me that the Galaxy S 4 is shipping with something different than everyone else who has a Snapdragon 600 at this point.
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slatanek - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
same goes for plastic - it can crack and scratch. and it just feels like... well plastic. Samsung phones being one of the worst when it goes to quality feel. Nokia and HTC make the best "feeling" plastic phones I reconslatanek - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
oh, one more thing. materials such as aluminum, glass etc. have a premium feels to them. same for polycarbonate. the difference being how these material age. my friend has an iPhone 4S with a cracked back, but it doesn't look that bad, if anything it has a vintage look and this is how premium materials age. if you have a plastic phone thats scratched or cracked it looks pretty much like garbage. and Samsung is particulalry bad at this - making their phones plastic glossy which means it reflects light in an uneven fashion and it just looks cheap. now bare in mind we're talking about flagships, they just should feel premium. I don't mind having a plastic midrange phone but at highend I expect top notch quality not only from the internals. same applies to cars - a tuned Honda may be as fast as a Ferrari but does it mean it is equally good? I don't think so. And I don't often hear Ferrari owners complaining about leather seats "cause they scratch much more than the regular ones".superflex - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
So you only cracked the back cover. How about the millions of people who dropped their plastic phone and cracked the bezel or non removable shell?Do you really think people only break the removable battery covers?
lopri - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
What other Snapdragon 600 devices? (plural) It's just the S4 and the One. (OK, LG has Optimus G Pro but you didn't see the markings on the chip on it and only ran browser benches with that)Brian Klug - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
I have an LG Optimus G Pro here, so that's three I guess.-Brian
CrystalBay - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Hi Brian , I would have also like to see a comparison of the external speakers quality. It seems Sammy did not learn from previous Galaxys.Roland00Address - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
From WikipediaAsus Padfone Infinity, HTC One, LG Optimus G Pro, Samsung Galaxy S4 (GT-I9505), ZTE Grand Memo V9815, Xiaomi Mi-2S, Pantech Vega Iron
gnx - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
The Pantech Vega Iron seemed interesting, at least in terms of casing. The soon due Lenovo K900 also is supposedly a metal-alloy, though we'll wait to see.Toss3 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Not as thorough as the HTC One review, but the best I've read thus far. THIS is how you write an objective review. Great comparisons, and detailed information about every aspect of the device.UpSpin - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Well written review.Especially your battery run down and display analysis are one-of-a-kind. Reviews on Engadget or TheVerge test it very subjectively and dim the display to 50% software brightness (which favors OLED because at 50% the OLED display is much darker than the LCD to save power, thus SGS4 scores much longer battery life, because the test is just wrong) You set it to fixed 200nits and test it very objectively.
You also highlight issues occuring with OLED (overheating and thermal issues). Personally I think OLED is the future-proof technology (I also bought a smartphone with an OLED display), but sadly the brightness is nothing spectacular and so the color accuracy. I wouldn't buy a smartphone with OLED again, at the moment.
LCD is just better, even if black isn't true black any longer. That's a small tradeoff, therefor I get outdoor usability, color accuracy and larger sub-pixels.
In the end, one can choose between HTC One (spectacular design, great display, usable camera, usable speakers, smooth and simple software) or the SGS4 (faster SoC which sadly overheats, removable battery, expandable storage, software loaded with gimmick features which sadly slow down the whole smartphone).
Because I won't use the gimmick features, rather just even switch to Cyanogenmod, bought but almost never used the second replacement battery in my current smartphone and the whole battery life improved to at least 3-4 years (my current battery is 3 years old and runs fine), never switched my SD-Card (32GB is plenty), but want it as point-and-shoot replacement and like the look of the HTC One, it's my personal favorit.