Samsung will unveil the Samsung Galaxy S4 at an unpacked event in New York on March 14. The S4 is the successor one of the most popular smartphones currently on the market, the Galaxy S3. According to a new rumor revealed by a Taiwan-based JPMorgan analyst in a note to clients, Samsung might release two versions of its next flagship smartphone, one for North America and another for the rest of the world.
According to this latest rumor, the North American Galaxy S4 will ship with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor, while the Galaxy S4 for Europe, China, Korea, and Japan will ship with Samsung's Exynos octa-core processor.
This news shouldn't come as too much of a shock, as Samsung pulled the same kind of move last year with the release of the Galaxy S3. It released two variants of the smartphone, with two different processors. North America received the Galaxy S3 with a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor, while Europe, China, Korea and Japan received a Galaxy S3 with a faster 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos quad-core processor. The reason Samsung released two variants of the Galaxy S3 was due to its LTE radio only being supported by Qualcomm at the time. This issue no longer exists, as Samsung currently ships its Samsung Galaxy Note phablet with a Qualcomm processor and LTE radio.
So why would Samsung ship two different variants of the Galaxy S4? It is speculated that Samsung has been having issues with building its Exynos octa-core processor and is not capable of meeting demand for the eight-core processor; therefore North America will have to settle for a quad-core processor.
Don't be too alarmed if you live in North America and plan on purchasing a Samsung Galaxy S4. HTC's just announced flagship HTC One is the first smartphone to use the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor expected to be in the North American Galaxy S4 variant. Benchmarks for the HTC One have shown that it easily beats all current smartphones on the market and feels extremely fast.
You've got to take this rumor with a huge grain of salt, but we'll know the full details on March 14 when Samsung officially unveils the Galaxy S4 and its specs to the world.
