Rumored specs for the "rugged" Samsung Galaxy S4 reveal a different processor under the hood

The so-called "rugged" version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 that is expected to be released water and dust proof, has just been through the GFX Benchmark site and some interesting information has been revealed. First of all, according to the site, the name of the phone will be the Samsung Galaxy S4 J Active. One model (SGH-I537) is believed to be heading for AT&T in the states, while another model (GT-I9295) will be released in Europe. The phone will be unveiled in a matter of weeks, and follows a new trend toward the water and dust proofing of high end models which really took off at CES with the Sony Xperia Z.

Just like the regular everyday version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, Android 4.2.2 will be pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy S4 J Active, which will still have TouchWiz running over Android and keep the FHD screen. The major difference (besides the water and dust proofing, of course) is that the "rugged" version of the new Android flagship model will have a quad-core 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus (MSM8960) processor under the hood. That compares with the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor or the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa found on the U.S.and International versions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 respectively.

Is there a reason to cut corners a bit with the CPU on the Samsung Galaxy S4 J Active? Could the cost of making the device better able to withstand the elements be so much that Samsung needed to go with the older chip to keep the price down? It is hard to answer these questions right now because the phone hasn't even been reduced and we have no pricing information yet. It simply could be that Samsung figured that those who typically buy rugged version of handsets are in particular fields where using a Snapdragon S4 instead of a Snapdragon 600 or an Exynos 5 Octa simply wouldn't matter.


Thanks, Anonymous Tipster!

source: GFXBench via Techtastic