Samsung confirms Snapdragon CPU for Galaxy S4 in Australia

According to Samsung, Australian Galaxy S4s will have the Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor. The Samsung Exynos processor model will be mostly kept for international 3G versions of the Galaxy S4.

We'd noted before that it was still unclear which CPU version of the Galaxy S4 Australia would be receiving: the Samsung-made octocore Exynos 5 or the 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 from Qualcomm.

We've heard back from Samsung Australia, and it's now official: Aussies will get the Snapdragon quad core.

Samsung told CNET Australia:

Samsung Australia is today confirming that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be available in Australia with the quad-core 1.9 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Series 600 processor and 4G LTE compatibility.

Globally, the majority of GS4 LTE versions will come with Qualcomm's Snapdragon, while 3G versions will be equipped with Samsung Exynos.

That would seem to suggest that the Exynos' power requirements when combined with a long-term evolution (LTE) modem are too much of a pressure on battery life. This is the same reason that, initially, any quad-core CPU handsets that ran on 4G were so rare. The Galaxy S3 was the first quad-core 4G phone in the Australian market.