It looks like the new Samsung Galaxy S4 won't be equipped with an Exynos processor or an AMOLED screen, according to rumors circulating about the recent announcement of the update to the company's flagship phone.
On Mar. 14, Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S IV, the successor to its wildly popular Galaxy S III, the first phone ever to outsell the Apple iPhone.
But recent reports say the S IV's specs won't be as good as initially hoped, due to power issues and problems at Samsung's factories.
"The Galaxy S IV will no longer use the Samsung EXYNOS processor and according to the latest rumours this processor has overheating issues," writes Sammobile.
"Today we can confirm Samsung will use the Snapdragon 600 and it is clocked at 1.9 Ghz which is 0.2 Ghz higher than the HTC One."
While the Snapdragon, made by Qualcomm, is an impressive processor, the Galaxy S IV was expected to use Samsung's own Exynos 5 eight-core chipset, but reports of its power issues seem to have been borne out.
That means the Galaxy S IV will be a powerful phone, but it may not be revolutionary -- at least not as much as initially anticipated.
In addition, it seems that Samsung's factories are having problems producing full HD AMOLED screens, so the Galaxy S IV will ship with a more conventional screen.
"Samsung Galaxy S IV will utilize full-HD (1920*1080) 4.99" LCD display with SoLux backlighting, but not Super AMOLED+ or bendable OLED as expected a while ago," writes xbitlabs. "According to the report, Samsung's LCD factories were ready to produce 1080p panels for smartphones already in early 2013, whereas Samsung's AMOLED factory had many problems with the production of full-HD AMOLED screens."
Samsung is working on flexible, bendy screens that will be harder to break and useful for more applications than normal glass screens, but the product isn't ready yet, and won't be available on any Samsung phones this year.