Samsung Galaxy S4 Active Release Date Update: New, Faster Snapdragon 800 Processor for the Waterproof Phone

Samsung is mixing it up again, producing a new version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active with a more powerful chipset than it originally released.

This time, it's for South Korea only, according to GFXBench, via SamMobile. The original Samsung Galaxy S4 is getting a bump to the 800, but according to GFXBench, the Active variant has the same processor as well. Some sleuthing identifies the new Active's chip number as MSM8974, which is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 processor.

Don't get too excited, if you're in the U.S., though. This model is headed to South Korea for the time being, according to the Samsung-watching blog. This Samsung Galaxy S4 Active probably got the upgraded processor for the utilitarian reason of supporting the LTE-A network that SK Telecom has launched recently. But it also comes with the benefit of a speedier processor for the water and dust-proof variant of the Galaxy S4.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor is a quad-core chip that can be clocked up to 2.3GHz. That will make the Galaxy S4 Active for South Korea a lot faster than the one released so far in the U.S., which has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor clocked at 1.9GHz.

Other specs are expected to stay the same. As we reviewed at Latinos Post Tech earlier this summer, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active packs a lot of the original S4's specs and adds a waterproof body, without losing too much of the power of the original. It has a 5-inch display with Full HD and 443 pixels per inch, which is actually higher than the original Galaxy S4. It only has a 16GB storage option, but there's a microSD expansion slot, and hopefully Samsung will get that firmware update going soon, so users can store their apps on the SD card. With the nicer Snapdragon 800 processor in the new Active version, the only big compromise you have to make for the Galaxy S4 Active's waterproof body is a lower megapixel camera. The Galaxy S4 Active's is 8-megapixels, as opposed to the Galaxy S4's 13-megapixel shooter.

Stay with Latinos Post Tech for more updates on the Galaxy S4 lineup, as well as other tech news. And we'll keep an eye out to see if the beefier S4 Active looks to be on its way to other countries.