Samsung Galaxy S4 Release Date Slips Due To Issues With Exynos 5 Octa; Device May Feature Snapdragon Chipset [Report]

At a time when rumors are rife that Samsung will release its next generation flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, March 14, a new report hit the Web Thursday suggesting that the highly anticipated device might be delayed due to issues with the eight-core Exynos Octa processor.

Tiernan Ray of Barron reported citing Piper Jaffray's Gus Richard that the South Korean tech giant was having problems getting the Galaxy S4 ready because of power-related issues with its own Exynos Octa processor.

“We believe Samsung’s Galaxy S4 has slipped and the Galaxy S3 has been in production a quarter longer than expected,” the report quoted Richard as saying. “We believe the S4 is being delayed primarily due to power issues with the company’s eight-core Exynos Octa. ... We believe the company is likely to shift more to external sources. We believe QCOM will pick up more of Samsung’s S4 business.”

On Wednesday, Korean site Digital Times reported (via Techkiddy) that a major problem in the Exynos 5 Octa Chipsets had forced Samsung to adopt the Qualcomm Snapdragon Chipset for the upcoming Galaxy S4 smartphone that would come with the model numbers including GT-I9505, SHV-E300S, SHV-300L and SCH-I545.

“The major problem in Exynos 5 Octa Chipsets is to control heat generation and much power consumption -- that is why Samsung has adopted the Qualcomm Snapdragon Chipset for upcoming flagship Samsung Galaxy S4,” the Techkiddy report said.

Interestingly, the report also stated that Samsung Galaxy S4 would be released only in a single version. There won’t be any international variant of the smartphone with Exynos 5 Octa.

Another recent report over at Sammobile, however, had a different story to tell. According to it, the Exynos 5450 had overheating issues and that’s why Samsung changed it into an Octa-core.

“The only problem is that the Octa-core processor by Samsung isn’t LTE-enabled, which will cost Samsung extra parts space inside the Galaxy S4,” the report said.

“There’s a possibility for Samsung to use the Octa-core processor in the non-LTE Galaxy S4 devices. Whereas the LTE variant of the Galaxy S4 could use the Snapdragon 600 Quad-core processor,” the report added.

Recently leaked benchmarks results also indicated that Samsung would use Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset to power the Galaxy S4. It was reported earlier that a new GLBenchmark database allegedly showed the Korean variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 (SHV-E300S) with a Qualcomm MSM8960 CPU clocked at 1.9GHz (384 – 1890MHz) and an Adreno 320 GPU.

Below are the highly rumored features and specs of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4:

- 4.99-inch Full HD Super AMOLED Display

- 1.9Ghz Quad Core Qualcomm Snapdragon

- Adreno 320 GPU

- 2GB RAM

- 64GB Flash memory

- 13 megapixel rear-facing camera

- 2 megapixel front-facing camera

- Wireless charging

- Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean

- TouchWiz UI

- Touchless gestures for screen navigation