Galaxy Note 4 S-LTE won't feature Snapdragon 810 SoC

[~KAGE-008]

According to reputable Samsung information provider and whistle-blower Sammobile, the new version of the Galaxy Note 4 set to be released in South Korea will not sport Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chipset, but rather an in-house chip designed and manufactured by Samsung – the same one found in the already released version of Note 4. However, it will feature a new modem listed as Shannon 333. Sammobile suggests the possibility of said modem being manufactured by Intel.

The new phablet variant will feature the exact exterior and interior hardware as the Galaxy Note 4 it is based upon. The main difference, other than the different modem, is its software: this new upgrade will come with Samsung’s fork of Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. This version is said to bring forth a batch of performance optimizations, alongside 64-bit support for the 64-bit-capable Exynos 5433 featured in both old and new handsets. However, according to the leaked benchmark, the device tested was not taking advantage of said feature. This is disappointing considering that 64-bit usually brings forth further performance enhancements.

The reason as to why Samsung decided not to set their signature smartphone to the most efficient configuration remains unknown – perhaps the processor wasn’t quite ready to function strictly as a 64-bit chip. This leads us to question Samsung’s decision to make this chipset capable of 64-bit processing and invest in this architecture for this particular chip without meaning to take advantage of it. Perhaps they didn’t want to upset customers, as with both revisions of their latest Galaxy S devices – which featured better processors than their versions without LTE-A support – consumers were frustrated and disappointed at Samsung for upgrading the device they had just purchased in a matter of a few months.

As for the actual improvements, the new modem is a further upgrade to Samsung’s Galaxy S5 LTE-A‘s network capabilities which provided LTE-A support, which Korean phone carriers rolled out in 2014 with a beastly maximum download speed of 300mb per second. The new modem found in the Note 4 S-LTE is supposed to hit a theoretical maximum of 450mb per second download speeds. The infrastructure for said technology’s consumer adoption has been considered to be deployed and test by US Carriers in 2013 but as of yet the support for these networks has not gained a mainstream release – perhaps because consumers couldn’t care much about it.

The first Android phone set to be released with the Snapdragon 810 is the HTC HIMA leaked last week. Said chipset is set to bring better performance, battery life, and further optimizations to sound and voice-recognition. It will also be Qualcomm’s first chipset to make use of Lollipop’s 64-bit support.

This revision of the Note line-up is reported to be released around the middle of January exclusively for South Korea. We’ll have more to report as information becomes more readily available.

Source: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/korean-note-4-revision-will-not-feature-a-newer-chipset/

 

[Nebulous]

What would you rather have Kage?