Galaxy S4 LTE-A – Upgraded

Original Galaxy S4 users just got troll-ed by Samsung with the launch of a new S4 variant, with much improvement specifications. Good news, it won’t be available in Singapore any time soon, so there’s no need to cry over it.

The newest Galaxy S4 variant has hit the web, and this time, instead of just differentiation features such as waterproof, zoom lens, mini size, the new Galaxy S4 is packing support for LTE Advanced, the successor to the LTE we all know and love. That device is now official on Korea’s SK Telecom, and it not only has support for the fastest mobile network on the planet, but also Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 800 chip. Early benchmarks of the device are in, and it crushes everything we’ve seen thus far – up to and including the “original” Galaxy S4. And why not? The Snapdragon 800 is the meanest and fastest quad-core 2.3 GHz chip which is also currently being offered on the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. Take a look:

Past the Snapdragon 800, other specs of the S4 LTE-A seem to be largely the same – 5-inch Super AMOLED display, 13MP camera, and the like.

On the outside, the Galaxy S4 LTE-A looks like the original Galaxy S 4. The original Galaxy S 4 runs a 1.6-GHz Samsung Exynos 5 Octa or a 1.9-GHz Qualcomm S4 Pro. The Singapore variant comes with the Qualcomm S4 Pro.

The Galaxy S4 LTE-A has the 5-inch Super AMOLED display and runs Android 4.2.2. There’s 32GB of internal memory, though the user only has access to about 24GB; the micro SD slot can expand that up to 64GB. There’s a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing cam. No changes here.

Samsung has been busy introducing different versions of the Galaxy S 4 lately. There’s the Galaxy S4 Mini, a 4.3-inch version, the rugged Galaxy S4 Active, and the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which is like a combination of the Mini and the Galaxy Camera.

SK Telecom’s LTE Advanced network, on the other hand, is by far the fastest mobile network available to consumers, with theoretical limitation of 150Mbps down and 37.5Mbps up. According toThe Verge, that’s a ten times faster than the average home broadband in the US. It’s basically the same download speed as what you get from Fiber in Singapore, which requires the installers coming down to lay cables into your home and charging you for all the wiring efforts alongside it. Instead, all this is available with just a SIM card and Over-The-Air transmission.

I think the picture above sums up the speed difference quite well.