Samsung Galaxy S4 Active review: Uncharted waters

Synthetic benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active packs a Snapdragon 600 chipset with four Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.9GHz, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 320 GPU. Those are exactly the same specs as the I9505 Galaxy S4 has, so we're expecting identical results, within a margin of error.

Benchmark Pi pretty much describes the performance - single-threaded tasks fly on the Krait 300 core, clocked higher than the competition. By the way, the I9500 Galaxy S4 with Exynos 5 Octa posted a score very similar to its Snapdragon 600 based siblings.

Linpack actually showed an advantage for the Galaxy S4 Active, but the difference is only about 4%. Geekbench 2 also showed a similar score, within 5%. As far as CPU performance - both single and multithreaded - is concerned, the Galaxy S4 Active is one of the fastest handsets you can buy.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  130
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Nexus 4
  431

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  818
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• HTC One X+
  177.7
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• HTC One X
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  3324
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  3227
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  3046
• LG Optimus G Pro
  3040
• HTC One
  2708
• Sony Xperia Z
  2173
• HTC Butterfly
  2143
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1661
• iPhone 5
  1601

In full system benchmarks AnTuTu and Quadrant the Galaxy S4 Active scored a little lower than the regular Galaxy S4, which means performance isn't perfectly identical (there are small differences in the firmwares the two phones run, which probably explains it). Still, it's not something you're likely to notice in real-life usage.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  26275
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  24716
• HTC One
  22678
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  21363
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15547
• Oppo Find 5
  15167

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  11346
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Nexus 4
  4567

GLBenchmark 2.5 and 2.7 were run in 1080p offscreen mode, so results can be compared against other devices, but for the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active that's the native resolution too. The 2.5 version of the benchmark put the S4 (Snapdragon 600) and S4 Active on equal ground, while there was a 1fps difference in 2.7. Either way, there are no smartphones (Android or otherwise) that score higher, so you won't have any problems with games.

To verify that, we ran Epic Citadel, which uses the popular Unreal Engine 3. The S4 Active scored very close to the 60fps limit, meaning there were very few occasions when gaming won't be at 60fps.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Oppo Find 5
  32
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One X
  11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  59.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  57.5
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  57.1
• HTC One
  56.4
• Sony Xperia Z
  55.6
• LG Optimus G Pro
  54.2
• Nexus 4
  53.9
• Asus Padfone 2
  53.4
• LG Optimus G
  52.6
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  41.3
• Oppo Find 5
  38.6

JavaScript performance proved to be inexplicably lower than what the regular S4 has to offer. The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is still a very fast device, but not as fast as it should be on this test. The BrowserMark score was within 5% of the regular S4 score.

Vellamo, which runs a whole battery of web tests, reports all is good in terms of performance, but it's a finicky benchmark, the Galaxy Note II still holds the crown there (granted it only had to render pages at 720p instead of 1080p).

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  804
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  810
• Samsung Ativ S
  891
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Nokia Lumia 920
  910
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• HTC One X+
  1001
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• HTC One
  1124
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  1196
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• Sony Xperia Z
  1336
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• HTC Butterfly
  1433
• Nexus 4
  1971
• Oppo Find 5
  2045

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  2338
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  2056
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  1936
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Oppo Find 5
  1658
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Nexus 4
  1310