Samsung Exynos 5 Octa supports LTE, why not on the Galaxy S4?
The Samsung Exynos team’s official Twitter account has confirmed that the new Exynos 5 Octa chip not only supports LTE, but all 20 bands of it. So what gives with the Galaxy S4? The phone, as we all know by now, will be released in two variants: the GT-I9500 and the GT-I9505. The latter will deploy a Snapdragon 600 SoC.
The assumption was that Samsung had to use the Snapdragon 600 to provide LTE support for regions like the US and UK, leading many to believe that the Exynos 5 Octa simply did not support the wireless standard. It would not be unprecedented, as the Exynos 4 lacked the prerequisite hardware to take advantage of the next-gen 4G standard, leading to a similar dual-model release for the Galaxy S3.
Samsung’s decision could actually have more to do with supply and demand, with Samsung allotting the easy-to-obtain Snapdragon chip for regions that should see high demand as the company slowly ramps up Exynos production. That still doesn’t quite explain the discrepancy in 4G support. It seems like more than a coincidence. Perhaps the Exynos 5 Octa still needs a bit of tweaking before it lives up to the proper standards of power consumption and performance when it comes to LTE.
[via PocketNow]