Many of you will already have heard that the Samsung Galaxy S3 (or S III) was finally made official yesterday and just some of our posts so far have been about official specs, hands-on looks, sign-up pages, bundles and much more. You may also have heard of the HTC One X, another impressive phone, and today we want to take a look at the HTC One X vs. the Galaxy S3 as far as core technology is concerned.
We should begin by saying that the international variant of the HTC One X has a quad-core processor but the US variant will have a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and will offer LTE connectivity. In a similar pattern the official specs for the European version of the Galaxy S3 have been confirmed and it will also have a quad-core processor and although the processor for the US variant is still unclear it’s certainly possible that this too could have the Snapdragon S4 dual-core instead of the quad-core for other regions.
This comparison then is based on the HTC One X and Galaxy S3 quad-core versions. The HTC One X has the NVIDIA Tegra 3 1.5GHz quad-core processor and has come in for a lot of praise for its speedy performance. It could be said to have 5 cores in fact as NVIDIA calls it “Super 4-PLUS-1” Quad Core. A Cnet article explains how this fifth core is more power efficient and comes into play to boost the battery life when there are no requirements for performance and also manages the low-power tasks.
The NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor also features DirectTouch technology to enhance touch responsiveness and lessen power consumption. The Tegra 3 is based on the ARM Cortex A9 design and uses a 40 nanometer fabrication process in manufacturing. We told yesterday how the battery life for the HTC One X using this processor has been praised although Cnet says, “Top-shelf components and a massive 4.7-inch screen take a toll on this pricey superphone’s battery life.”
Moving on to the quad-core processor for the Galaxy S3 then and this is the Exynos 4 Quad at 1.4GHz. Samsung say that the quad-core processor was chosen for several reasons, one of them being that it offers full-speed video at 30fps for 1080p video capture and playback. The high-quality camera and HDMI 4.1 interface is also possible because of an embedded image signal processor interface.
This processor uses 32 nanometer technology, more recent than the 40 nanometer process for the NVIDIA Tegra 3 used on the HTC One X. Samsung claims this means its processor has twice the processing capability of the Exynos dual-core processor and also uses 20% less power. The Exynox 4 Quad processor is also based on the ARM Cortex A9 design used for the NVIDIA quad-core. Obviously as the Galaxy S3 has only just been announced there has been no chance yet to test out how well this quad-core processor works in Samsung’s flagship device.
When the first reviews start to come in we’ll have more of an idea of which of these quad-core processors comes out best in tests but the HTC One X has already been a huge hit and it’s more than likely that the Galaxy S3 will achieve phenomenal sales too. What are your thoughts on the latest smartphones using quad-core technology? Do you think the Exynos quad-core used by Samsung will match the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core, or maybe even better it? Send your comments to let us know.
