Galaxy S4
JK Shin, President and Head of IT and Mobile Communication Division, holds up Samsung Electronics Co's latest Galaxy S4 phones during its launch at the Radio City Music Hall in New York March 14, 2013. Reuters

Following the highly anticipated unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4 last week, the tech world is busy figuring out which smartphone is the best. Really, it's a contest between the upcoming Galaxy S4 and the Apple iPhone 5.

At first glance, the latest Samsung offering appears to be the best smartphone due to its new features, which include a sharper screen, bigger battery and a much enhanced processor -- compared to the previous version of the phone -- to name a few. But the question is, with all these improvements on board, how much better is the new Galaxy than its rivals?

Primate Labs has come up with an analysis of the Geekbench 2 scores for the Samsung Galaxy S4, which measured the upcoming smartphone against some other popular smartphones like the iPhone 5, HTC One, LG Nexus 4, BlackBerry Z10 and also the Galaxy S3.

As per the benchmark analysis, the Galaxy S4 is a lot faster than the other listed smartphones. The new handset’s score of 3,163 was almost twice that of the Apple iPhone 5's 1,596. Here’s what John Poole of Primate Labs had to say in his analysis:

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is twice as fast as the Samsung Galaxy S3. Given that the Samsung Galaxy S3 is less than a year old, that's a remarkable achievement. I am amazed at how quickly smartphone technology is improving.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is also twice as fast as the Apple iPhone 5. Apple has improved performance dramatically in the past (there was 2.5x increase in performance from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone 5). Will they be able to make a similar improvement for the next iPhone?

Samsung Galaxy S4 vs Apple iPhone 5
The Geekbench 2 scores for the Samsung Galaxy S4, weighing it against some other popular smartphones like the iPhone 5, HTC One, LG Nexus 4, BlackBerry Z10 and also the Galaxy S3. Primate Labs

In the analysis, HTC One placed second with a score of 2,687, followed by the LG Nexus 4, which placed third with 2,040. The Samsung Galaxy S3 variant with the Exynos 4412 at 1.4 GHz (4 cores) placed fourth, scoring 1,717, while the iPhone 5, powered by the Apple A6 processor at 1.3 GHz (2 cores) took the fifth place with a score of 1,596.

Although the benchmarks show that the iPhone 5 is slower than some of its competitors, there are certain points to consider.

“Apple's close integration of software and hardware leads to significant performance gains that Android phones can't easily replicate,” a MacRumors article claimed.

Redmond Pie has also made the same argument, saying that “since Apple molds its software around its hardware and vice-versa, the Cupertino-based company is better able to achieve a smooth operating system, and can thus afford to be a little more conservative about how much power it decides to place within.”

The report also argues that the iPhone 5 is more than six months old, and apart from the Galaxy S3, all other smartphones in the list are considerably new.

The benchmark analysis in question only tested the Samsung Galaxy S4 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 SoC, and according to Poole, Primate Labs can’t say how the Galaxy S4 with the new Exynos 5 Octa SoC will perform.

However, considering that the Galaxy S3 with Exynos 4412 at 1.4 GHz (4 cores) is proved faster than the other variant with the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 at 1.5 GHz (2 cores), Poole believes that the Geekbench score will be similar to that of the Galaxy S4 with the 8-core Exynos processor as well.

UPDATE: Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini May Feature Exynos 5210 Processor, Device Reportedly Appears On Official Website In Four Variants

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