Samsung Has Disabled Its Benchmark-Boosting In Android 4.4 Updates To S4 And Note 3

Months after the Galaxy S4 was released last year, allegations began surfacing from Anandtech that Samsung was essentially “gaming” its devices’ CPU and GPU benchmark scores by leaving cores at “full throttle” when such benchmarking applications were launched. This allowed Samsung to achieve marginally higher scores in such tests than its rivals, and gave the Galaxy S4 and Note 3 the appearance of being a little quicker than a typical benchmarking environment would otherwise show them to be.

Benchmark-gate initially made waves in the tech press, but was rather quickly forgotten because, well, they’re benchmarks – who really cares? Was the practice a bit deceptive – scummy, even? Sure. But there are no established rules for benchmarking, and really, if you’re considering buying a phone based on a benchmark score, you probably need to evaluate your priorities.

Still, it was a dumb, dastardly thing to do, particularly considering the only people really paying close attention to benchmarks are rabid fanboys and in-depth technical reviewers like the team over at Anandtech. In short, it was a big PR gaff for an extremely small – practically nonexistent – payoff.

Samsung never really fully accepted responsibility for the practice, or admitted to any outright wrongdoing, but as this story goes to show: actions speak louder than words. The Android 4.4 updates to the Galaxy S4 and Note 3 don’t just bring a healthy dose of KitKat, no no – Samsung’s benchmark shenanigans have been eradicated according to tests conducted by arstechnica and Geekbench.

Geekbench’s data for Galaxy S4 scores by Android version

The results of the testing were pretty conclusive, too; Geekbench scores for both the Note 3 and Galaxy S4 running Android 4.4.2 are significantly lower than those obtained when the devices ran Android 4.3. Geekbench assisted Ars’ investigation by examining not just the scores of individual devices, but rather the full dataset of GS4s and Note 3s Geekbench has accumulated, making the results fairly difficult to dispute.

The conclusion, then, is pretty obvious: Samsung removed the offending code which caused the S4 and Note 3 to behave differently in benchmarking apps. Somehow I doubt they’ll be trying that again anytime soon.

Samsung issues invites to September 4 Galaxy Note 3 event

In spite of naysayers, Samsung’s stylus-based Galaxy Note phablet series has definitely carved a market for itself. Introduced in October 2011, the original 5.3-inch Note went on to ship a surprising ten million units by mid-August 2012, making a believable case for pen-based mobile devices sized between jumbo-smartphones and tweener tablets.

During last year’s IFA, the Galaxy maker held the Unpacked event to introduce the Note successor, called the Note II. But that was last year and this year another Note upgrade is needed so the South Korean conglomerate has just sent out invites to an event unimaginatively called Unpacked 2013 Episode 2, with the Note III likely the star of the show…

The event is due on September 4 (the first Wednesday in September) at 7pm local time (1pm ET, 10am Pacific) in Berlin, Germany.

Samsung will be providing a live stream of the press conference in New York’s Time Square. The company has also promised a YouTube livestream feed for those that can’t make it to Berlin to follow along.

If the ‘Note the Date’ tagline and invitation graphics are an indication, it’s all but certain that the announcement will focus on the next Note phablet. The current-generation Note II features a 5.55-inch 720p resolution screen and a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM. At the very least, the Note III should improve upon its predecessor by providing a newer Samsung chip and a 1080p display upgrade.

The Note does not directly compete with Apple’s iOS devices because Apple doesn’t believe the stylus is the way to go. “If you see a stylus, they blew it,” Steve Jobs quipped during the January 2007 iPhone introduction.

However, the success of Samsung’s Note series – though not (yet) stealing sales from Apple – proves there is a market for phablets and pen-based mobile computing.

We know from patent filings Apple is researching so-called active stylus for iOS devices, but that’s never a guarantee we’ll ever see a stylus-based gadget from Apple.

If anything, a rumored 13-inch iPad could benefit from providing an optional pen-based input method for specialized apps like design, CAD and so forth.

Samsung officially unveils ATIV Q and ATIV Tab 3 Windows 8 tablets and announces ATIV Book 9 Plus, ATIV Book 9 Lite ultrabooks and Galaxy NX Camera

Today Samsung has announced the next generation of their sleek Series 9 ultrabook. The two new ultrabooks are called ATIV Book 9 Plus and ATIV Book 9 Lite respectively and both run Windows 8, as you might have guessed.

Both feature aluminium unibodies and 13.3-inch screens with touch functionality. The one on the ATIV Book 9 Plus however packs the whopping 3200 X 1800 QHD+ resolution.

The ATIV Book 9 Plus uses Intel’s fourth gen Haswell CPUs – both Core i5 and i7 ULT are available – and provides up to 12h of battery life. It has 2xUSB 3.0 ports, it weighs only 1.39kg and comes in black.

The ATIV Book 9 Lite takes it easier on the wallet with a screen, which has 1366 x 768px resolution and touch functionality only as an option.

The ATIV Book 9 Lite is powered by a low-voltage quad-core CPU and weighs 1.44kg-1.58kg depending on the touchscreen option. It has one USB 3.0 port and another USB 2.0 port on board. It will be available in both black and white.

There is no info on pricing and availability just yet.

Samsung announces Galaxy NX, first Android-powered interchangeable lens camera with 20.3MP APS-C sensor

Samsung just unveiled the first interchangeable lens camera that is powered by Android, the Samsung Galaxy NX. The device is a more advanced version of the Galaxy Camera with a much larger sensor and you get a choice of NX mount lenses.

The Galaxy NX uses an APS-C sensor with an effective resolution of 20.3MP. Besides high resolution stills, the camera can also record 1080p video at 25fps. The camera features DRIMe IV Image Signal Processer and can do burst shots at 8.6fps with a maximum shutter speed of up to 1/6000 sec.

The big sensor isn’t the only advantage – with the Galaxy NX you can use any NX mount lens, pancake lenses, fish eye lenses, long primes and zoom lenses, even a 45mm 2D/3D lens. Some lenses feature Optical Image Stabilization too.

The camera packs a powerful xenon popup flash and you get an electronic viewfinder with SVGA resolution (800 x 600) if you are into that sort of thing.

The Samsung Galaxy NX also packs a 4.8″ HD TFT LCD display on the back, which is a lot better than what cameras usually get (yes, even expensive DSLRs). It gets much better functionality too, thanks to Android 4.2.2 with TouchWiz 5, which is becoming standard issue for recent Galaxy devices.

The Samsung Galaxy NX is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage. The storage can be expanded with a microSD card (up to 64GB). Connectivity is worthy of a smartphone too with LTE (market dependent), HSPA+ (42Mbps download), Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS plus GLONASS for accurate geo-tagging.

The TouchWiz software means users get the same creative camera modes that we saw on the Galaxy S4 Zoom – more than 30 Smart modes including Animated photo (creates a GIF), Multi Exposure and Sound & shot.

The Galaxy NX will come bundled with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for advanced image processing, but the camera also comes with True 3D Creator for making 3D images and movies.

The camera measures 136.5 x 101.2 x 25.7mm and weighs 495g with the battery. Speaking of which, it’s a 4,360mAh battery, which is close to four times the capacity of the Samsung NX2000 battery, but it’s needed for the bigger screen and powerful chipset.

There’s no info on the price and availability of the Samsung Galaxy NX just yet.

Samsung officially unveils ATIV Q and ATIV Tab 3 Windows 8 tablets

At today’s Premiere event in London Samsung officially announced two tablets – the convertible ATIV Q and ATIV Tab 3. Both devices run Windows 8, while the ATIV Q can dual boot Android as well.

Starting up with the Samsung ATIV Q, as it is the more interesting slate of the two. It’s built around a 13.3″ display with the jaw-dropping resolution of 3200 x 1800 pixels. This results in pixel density of 275ppi, more than some not-so-old smartphones out there.

Since its a slider tablet, it supports a few lock modes: typing, floating (the display is lifted from the base), stand and writing.

It’s powered by a fourth-gen Intel Core i5 processor with Intel’s HD Graphics 4400 GPU, 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD storage. It runs Windows 8 and can run Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, as well. Connectivity options include one USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 port each, micro HDMI, Ethernet port (via a dongle), and an SD card slot. The front-facing camera is capable of shooting 720p HD video.

The Samsung ATIV Q weighs 1.29kg (2.84 pounds) and measures 327.0 x 217.8 x 13.9mm, which is not too shabby for a tablet with these specifications. The battery is of unknown size, but Samsung claims it can power the ATIV Q for up to 9 hours.

Samsung ATIV Tab 3

On to the Samsung ATIV Tab 3, which sports a 10.1″ display, packing a more modest 1366 x 768 pixels resolution. It runs Windows 8 again but is powered by he Intel ATOM Z2760 CPU and 2GB of RAM. The internal storage is 64GB, expandable via the on-board microSD card slot.

The ATIV Tab 3 weighs 550 grams and is just 8.2mm thick, which Samsung claims is the world’s thinnest as far as Windows 8 tablets go. The company hasn’t provided details about the battery yet, but says it’ll be good for 10 hours of usage. There’s one microUSB and one microHDMI port as well.

Sharing the design of the Galaxy Tab series, the ATIV Tab 3 also features an improved S Pen, which is fully compatible with the Microsoft Office suite, which is preloaded on it (Home & Student version).

Samsung Galaxy and Ativ live streaming

Live video from Samsung’s event in London. It’s scheduled to start at 7 p.m. U.K. time, 9 p.m Beirut Time.

Note that once the event starts we will suspend the posting of new articles and updates until the show is over.