Anandtech: Galaxy S4 doesn't use Snapdragon 600

[LoganK]

The S4 beat the One in damn near every category so what's the big conspiracy? Also, if it wasn't an S600 then it wouldn't be able to do 802.11ac wifi...

I'm pretty sure the Snapdragon 600 (oddly) does not come with any wireless support, including WiFi. Broadcom is reporting that WiFi and Bluetooth support is provided by the BCM4335. (HTC also chose to pair the Snapdragon 600 with the Broadcom chip.

(I still can't figure out what cellular modem it uses...)

I'm not sure about the APQ8064T vs. the APQ8064AB, but it seems kind of weak to base all this discussion on a reference in the kernel source (which includes a lot of code not for this phone). I'm not saying they are wrong, Anandtech seem to know their technology, but I think we'll have to get confirmation from somebody who actually has the phone.

Then there's the question of differences in architecture between the two. Obviously it's testing faster, but is there a trade-off we're missing? Probably not, but it seems odd that HTC and Samsung would make so many similar decisions and then pick two slightly different processors.

 

[Asmodian]

Oops

 

[dmmarck]

The S4 beat the One in damn near every category so what's the big conspiracy? Also, if it wasn't an S600 then it wouldn't be able to do 802.11ac wifi...

According to what review? Anandtech's final comments in each respective review clearly shows its favor towards the One..

 

[stryfe]

According to what review? Anandtech's final comments in each respective review clearly shows its favor towards the One..

Did you even look at the benchmarks? That what I was referencing. And in the Final Words section they stated that it comes down to "what you value more".

 

[return_0]

Did you even look at the benchmarks? That what I was referencing. And in the Final Words section they stated that it comes down to "what you value more".

Are you really going to reference benchmarks to make your point? They prove little more than drop tests do.

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[dmmarck]

Did you even look at the benchmarks? That what I was referencing. And in the Final Words section they stated that it comes down to "what you value more".

After saying they prefer the One?

 

[stryfe]

Are you really going to reference benchmarks to make your point? They prove little more than drop tests do.

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You can't be serious. Anandtech base all their reviews off of benchmarks...CPUs, GPUs, SSDs and now phones. It's why they are who they are. Now you want to throw all that out the window because they don't favor the HTC One?

 

[dmmarck]

You can't be serious. Anandtech base all their reviews off of benchmarks...CPUs, GPUs, SSDs and now phones. It's why they are who they are. Now you want to throw all that out the window because they don't favor the HTC One?

Actually, scratch the above comment I made. You can't say that they left it open ("whatever you choose") and then say they favored one over the other.

 

[stryfe]

After saying they prefer the One?

Where did they say that at? I didn't see that in the review.

 

[stryfe]

Actually, scratch the above comment I made. You can't say that they left it open ("whatever you choose") and then say they favored one over the other.

I didn't say they favored one or the other. I said the benchmarks favor the One. The reviewer left it open to "whatever you choose".

 

[Suda]

Are you really going to reference benchmarks to make your point? They prove little more than drop tests do.

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I believe he's saying what difference does it make if it's a 600 or not, whatever it is it outperforms the 600 in the One.

I'd like to see this for myself but haven't had any time to open and view the kernel source, but I could've sworn it was just the 600 clocked at a higher speed than the One. If anything it's a modified Snapdragon 600. The S4 Pro chip has a max clock speed of 1.7 GHz, and it's already been confirmed that the Galaxy S4's chip is 1.9 GHz which happens to be the max for the 600. But I'm not too sure if I believe it's modified either, its performance is right there with the One's 600. If it were clocked at 1.7 like the One instead of 1.9 they'd be virtually the same, what's there to modify? It's pretty interesting.

 

[dmmarck]

Where did they say that at? I didn't see that in the review.

And I don't see where they choose the S4 either.

It's when you compare the Galaxy S 4 to its chief technical competitor, the HTC One, that the discussion becomes more complicated. HTC and Samsung take very different approaches to nearly every aspect of their flagship smartphones. Whether it's display (LCD vs. Super AMOLED), camera (low light vs. well lit performance), or software (subtle Sense 5 or feature filled TouchWiz), you couldn't pick two more different players in the Android space. So which is better?

It really depends on what you value more. The One's camera delivers better low light performance, while the Galaxy S 4's camera delivers better performance in well lit (e.g. outdoor) scenarios. The One's software customizations are definitely more subtle and out of your way, while Samsung's approach is much more feature overload and in your face. It's difficult to say for sure given our Sprint review unit, but HTC likely gets the slight edge in battery life based on our results here today (although these two devices can be close competitors depending on the workload). Samsung does integrate the faster SoC, despite both the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One shipping the same Snapdragon 600 platform. Samsung and HTC remain on opposite sides of the removable battery/microSD fence, if those two things matter to you then Samsung is the obvious choice. Finally there's a question of how much you value/desire an all-metal smartphone. For some, Samsung's choice in materials is going to continue to be a very big issue.

So like I said--scratch it being in favor of the One. Clearly, they haven't chosen based upon those comments above. So you can't say otherwise (and neither can I).

- - - Updated - - -

I believe he's saying what difference does it make if it's a 600 or not, whatever it is it outperforms the 600 in the One.

I'd like to see this for myself but haven't had any time to open and view the kernel source, but I could've sworn it was just the 600 clocked at a higher speed than the One. If anything it's a modified Snapdragon 600. The S4 Pro chip has a max clock speed of 1.7 GHz, and it's already been confirmed that the Galaxy S4's chip is 1.9 GHz which happens to be the max for the 600. But I'm not too sure if I believe it's modified either, its performance is right there with the One's 600. If it were clocked at 1.7 like the One instead of 1.9 they'd be virtually the same, so what's there to modify? It's pretty interesting.

Also keep in mind that TW requires more horsepower than other skins.

 

[return_0]

You can't be serious. Anandtech base all their reviews off of benchmarks...CPUs, GPUs, SSDs and now phones. It's why they are who they are. Now you want to throw all that out the window because they don't favor the HTC One?

Throw it out the window? I never said benchmarks proved anything. I would say the same if they favored the One.

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[TheLibertarian]

The fog of product launches obscures so much. But Qualcomm confirmed today in a blog post that the new Samsung Galaxy S4 will launch with a 1.9-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, not the slightly older S4 Pro that Samsung mentioned yesterday.

Qualcomm Confirms Snapdragon 600 in Galaxy S4 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Your article is about 6 weeks older than the article in this post; I'm fairly sure your outdated source doesn't clear anything up.

 

[Suda]

Also keep in mind that TW requires more horsepower than other skins.

The S4 comes in the 25000's while the One comes in the 23000's, it could be clocked at 1.7 and still yield similar synthetic results to the One. I said synthetic, not real world.

 

[Aquila]

And one of the reasons people site when apps aren't updated to comply with the latest style guides from Google is "well, the biggest selling phone has a menu key". Last year, cool, I got it. ICS was still fairly new. This year, not so much. Apps need to be updated. A huge manufacturer like Samsung has the capability to help with that by going along with what Google is recommending.

I'm boycotting 100% of devices that won't step up to the minimum standards set by the Nexus devices. The Nexus devices come out and trounce the Q2 releases on hardware and features and set a new bar... then a couple of manufacturers pretend it didn't happen so they can save on the R&D (I think that's the theory.. if we leave it the way it is, it's cheaper...) even though many of the "features" they're coming out with already exist in the included Android package they're given and they're actually devolving below minimum standards. And since they're duplicating effort, in my mind that suggests waste. Remember, they have to go out of their way to modify TouchWiz to circumvent the included code and recreate it to match their button configuration. It's free to choose not to do that.

The S4 and One are great devices, but both have a list of features that are worse than the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4. I get they're guidelines, but they're also highly suggested since the intention is obviously to make Android more gesture based and less positional relative to a antiquated physical hardware component.

Of course Android is open-sourced and the companies that take it are free to do what they want, but why are they working backwards towards the last decade's concepts?

 

[jaebberwock]

I'm just an occasional visitor but holy cow, what an embarrassing thread! I think I blushed from the second hand embarrassment I felt. Think of all the search engine results that threw people this way, it does not put the staff here in a good light. Volunteer or not, the perception is that Mods are representatives of the site. I don't know how big a deal it is to delete posts but it certainly should be considered in this case.

 

[Aquila]

holy cow.

You have the most winningest name of everyone today.

 

[return_0]

I'm just an occasional visitor but holy cow, what an embarrassing thread! I think I blushed from the second hand embarrassment I felt. Think of all the search engine results that threw people this way, it does not put the staff here in a good light. Volunteer or not, the perception is that Mods are representatives of the site. I don't know how big a deal it is to delete posts but it certainly should be considered in this case.

I don't know what sites you normally go on, but on all the sites I normally visit, moderators are not official representatives of the site. They're free to express their opinions as much as anyone else.

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[Kevin OQuinn]

I'm just an occasional visitor but holy cow, what an embarrassing thread! I think I blushed from the second hand embarrassment I felt. Think of all the search engine results that threw people this way, it does not put the staff here in a good light. Volunteer or not, the perception is that Mods are representatives of the site. I don't know how big a deal it is to delete posts but it certainly should be considered in this case.

I understand, but no posts will be deleted.

I don't know what sites you normally go on, but on all the sites I normally visit, moderators are not official representatives of the site. They're free to express their opinions as much as anyone else.

Sent from my pure Google Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

Exactly. When we DO express our opinion we've effectively eliminated our ability to Moderate in that particular thread. I'm not sure how many people would actually want to be a Moderator if that meant that they could no longer participate in any threads for the sake of discussion.

And sure, we do represent the site. But it's much, MUCH more than that. We have other responsibilities as well, and sometimes unique approaches need to be taken to situations that can't be handled any other way and still be effective.