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As reported on KitGuru a while back, the new Samsung S4 products will have the kind of processing power and storage specification that would not have looked out of place in a desktop PC 10 years ago. It now seems that the UK launch spec for the S4 has been decided. KitGuru weighs the options.
Buying a new phone creates a buzz around the KitGuru offices, we're not going to lie.
That said, the team is split [Fairly evenly – Ed] between those that want the latest and greatest – and those that believe we are already carrying around too much power in our pockets.
Samsung has decided that the UK is Gigglehurts hungry, it seems, so we will be hit with the turbo charged 1.9GHz processor version at the very high end.
The trade off (as seems to be the way with desktop parts), is that we will ONLY have 4 cores of processing goodness – the 8 core being unable to function sensibly at that kind of speed, presumably.
Here's the thing we're not sure about right now: Unless the way we use phones changes completely, how much benefit do we really get from all of this additional performance?
When nVidia moves Tegra 6 to 64-bit around the end of 2014, then that will open up new memory access possibilities. AMD is already working with ARM to provide 64-bit technology into their small processors (but more with a view toward the micro server market, we suspect).
Modern phones have been able to run HD video for a while – and having more processing capability doesn't mean you can watch a 2 hour film in 1 hour.
They already include photo editing etc – so we're not sure about the changes there.
From our completely paranoid/conspiracy-theory shaded point of view, the only reason for pushing out a 1.9GHz processor is that it will look bigger than the CPU speed on the next Apple iPhone.
But, maybe, we're wrong and a killer app will land in the next month or three.
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KitGuru says: It's hard for aged gurus to get too excited by all of this new phone technology that assails us every month or so. The question we keep asking is “Why so much power?” when, in most cases, all you're doing is photos, texts and calls. The usage model needs to evolve next. And that means us.
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“It is as yet unclear why Samsung has chosen to downgrade the processor for British consumers, although 3G speculated that it could be because the Exynos 5 is incompatible with 4G networks.”
Shame but you can’t have everything!!
Read more: dailymail science
“The trade off (as seems to be the way with desktop parts), is that we will ONLY have 4 cores of processing goodness – the 8 core being unable to function sensibly at that kind of speed, presumably.”
The eight-core processor actually is a dual-quad-core processor and it never runs eight cores at once!