Gadgetory

it's always interesting when a company as big as Samsung releases a new flagship smartphone because it often has to release different versions of the device for different global markets well today we're putting two of those versions head-to-head the quad-core Qualcomm powered galaxy s4 for sprint up against the Samsung Exynos powered octa-core Galaxy s4 the GTI 9500 for other global markets I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow this is octa quad let's get to it okay so as we learned in our octa unboxing video there are almost no aesthetic differences between these devices save for some branding down low on the battery door almost all the changes between the SP HL 7 24 sprint and the GTI 9500 are under the hood and the changes are significant we'll get hardware first followed by benchmarks and performance and we'll end with a little camera testing follow us on social media by the way so you don't miss the rest of our extensive galaxy s4 coverage at pocket now Sprint's device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 a quad-core processor running at 1.9 gigahertz the IEEE 9500 takes its processing power from an Exynos 5 octa CPU which is actually two quad-core clusters a big 1.6 gigahertz cortex a15 and a little 1.2 gigahertz cortex a7 working together according to arm only one set is active at any given time depending on what kind of processing load is being asked of the device with the switch overtaking 20 microseconds to accomplish the CPU emulates a single quad-core processor to Android and its apps and that becomes evident in certain benchmarking applications which you'll see in a second the different CPUs also mean different GPUs as well with the octa carrying a power VR SGX 544 mp3 unit while the american variant offers energy no 320 from Qualcomm both devices carry 2 gigs of ram and usual 16 32 or 64 gigs of on-board storage upgradeable via microsd to an additional 64 gigs from a forward-looking perspective these are both very capable and cool platforms but some speculate that the Snapdragon variants will see a larger share of developer attention or at least will detract from the attention given to the X and O's version because all US variants feature the Snapdragon that's speculation but it's something that's important to consider if your app or game tastes are exotic or cutting-edge and you're planning on investing in either of these devices for the long haul us buyers will face an important choice when selecting between these devices in the form of LTE while the Exynos 5 octa cpu itself does support all LTE bands the GTR 9500 device as produced does not there's no official support for LTE in this model so any American wanting to take advantage of LTE had better go with one of the u.s. carrier variants there is HSPA+ of course in the 9500 before those in markets with a strong AT&T presence in terms of synthetic benchmarks the difference in cpu power between these devices is easily seen the octa outscores the snapdragon in every metric in our benchmark battery with the exception of the new 3d mark gaming test we ran the test multiple times just to be sure but the Snapdragon powered unit outperformed the GTI 9500 both times whether that's a result of crate versus cortex or the different GPUs we won't go into but it was interesting to see the Qualcomm powered American variant outpacing its Exynos sibling in this one benchmark in terms of software performance the benchmark differences don't equate to much variance in responsiveness we were slightly disappointed in the occasional lag or stutter we saw in our sprint unit in our full review but those rare hiccups were solved by and large by turning off some of Samsung's new processor intensive features both of these devices are quite responsive as long as you're not running the entire feature set that Samsung is added and of course you're not going to get as much carrier bloat with the International unlocked I 9500 but Samsung has provided s health and the other s apps which we've covered in other videos at pocket now at launch times were very close for low impact apps like Twitter and Facebook with the American version lagging by fractions of a second behind the eye 9500 and apps like the camera and browser Samsung's dialer is the classic style on the international version not the whitewashed easy mode look-alike on the Sprint variant but it comes up just as quickly performance on webpages is substantially identical as well with text zoom and re-render about as quick as you could ask for on each Netflix movies loaded in less than three seconds on each with a fast Wi-Fi connection games like temple run Angry Birds Star Wars and ripped GP ran identically in our testing on each but the flight simulator sky defenders ran with significantly more jumpiness and stuttering on our American device the bottom line for gaming seems to be that most popular titles will play comparably on each device but certain high demand niche games may run differently many folks are anxious to learn how well the octa s4 does against the Snapdragon s4 in terms of battery life each device offers a 2600 milliamp hour power pack but how do the radically different processor architectures affect power consumption well in terms of static testing the antutu battery tester sees a winner in the octa-core variant the GTI 9500 scored a 503 in the stress test while the SP HL 720 sprint variant scored a 470 we wanted to test these results under real-world conditions though so we brought the two devices out side by side for a two-hour long reality test we matched up settings installed apps display brightness even home screens and wallpapers as best we could and turn to LTE off on our Sprint device to keep each device on as equal a footing as possible we left Wi-Fi enabled though so we could hop on and off our home network in both units started at 100% charge during our journey we put each device through a condensed version of our typical day firing a few emails off jumping into and out of Twitter and Facebook checking in on Foursquare taking in a few tracks on Spotify engaging in a bunch of text message an IM conversations watching a youtube or a netflix video here and there taking notes in Evernote browsing the web GPS navigating squeezing in a quick game or two taking some photos and video and even making a handful of phone calls that would be eye 9501 the call quality competition but we remind you these phones are on two different networks we did a lot of stuff remember though anything we did on one phone we did concurrently or immediately afterward on the other at the end of our two-hour test the results were as follows the International GTI 9500 boasted a 73% charge remaining while the Sprint L 720 set at 68% total time off charger was 2 hours 15 minutes and screen on time was just over 1 hour on each device we describe battery life as good to great on both devices under even moderate to heavy loads and even considering we jumped into and out of coverage areas a few times on the subway after the video you're seeing now we'll run the devices to depletion using looped video on each results from the test to exhaustion will be available down in the description and in our post at pocketnow.com in the interim that 5% difference roughly reflects the disparity we recognized from our extended testing and it verifies the antutu result as well the international version beats the sprint variant in battery life but not by much we can't tear down the hardware on our review units but according to chip works the primary camera sensor on the I 9500 is the Sony I MX 135 and many sources seem to agree the American versions pack the same hardware well firmware almost certainly varies across these devices results are quite similar as you can see the only difference we could discern was a greener tint on the i-90 500 in our low-light test but otherwise results looked identical to us even in video with the Galaxy s4 samsung has admirably dealt with the problem of delivering the same product experience across many different markets with very different internal hardware because these phones are very very similar unless you're a hardcore gamer or another user with very specialized needs you won't notice much difference in performance between the I 9500 and the American variant and even then the differences may surprise you remember the Qualcomm device 1 the 3d gaming benchmark yes the more globally friendly version offers better battery life and better overall benchmarks but is that worth the loss of LTE support and the much higher price tag of an unsubsidized model if you're an American buyer we don't think so we think most folks will be better off buying the regionally appropriate version of the galaxy s4 which honestly shouldn't come as much of a surprise the octa-core variant is cool but it's not necessarily worth the reputation the spec heads are giving it like I said in the video folks we have a whole lot more galaxy s4 coverage at pocketnow.com and here on youtube so subscribe so you don't miss any of it throw us a like if you did enjoy this video leave us a comment if you have some feedback and thank you for watching we'll see you next time