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).