About half a year after the release of the Galaxy S III, a number of rumors have begun to surface about the Samsung Galaxy S4, and I have prepared another report card for your entertainment (some of these rumors actually are wild enough to be entertaining ).

First, a guide to how I evaluate rumors:

Grade	Criteria
	Expect an announcement. All but certain.
	It's likely true. This either means independent confirmation or an extremely reliable source with a proven track record.
	Could go either way. This could mean an unconfirmed rumor that happens to fit available facts, or a company's behavior patterns.
	Take it with a spoonful of salt. A grain of salt is what you should take with rumors graded "C". Very unlikely, but theoretically possible.
	I call vaporware. Based on the available evidence, it's not gonna happen.

And now, on to the rumors...

DISPLAY

The screen will be made of unbreakable plastic: C
Source: Reuters via PhoneArena

This is a distinct possibility, given that Reuters has been a mostly reliable source of rumors in the past. Also, OLED panels can be composed of plastic as opposed to glass substrate, which could mean greater durability while still employing Samsung's vivid display technology. An analyst rated as highly reliable by Reuters had this to say about the future of Samsung displays:


I wouldn't hold my breath for a flexible and/or foldable display in 2013, however. The technology for making flexible displays is still new, there are very few concept models in the market that implement them in a practical manner, and Samsung has yet to prove that it can mass-produce them. I'd peg that one for the Galaxy S V in 2014, if not as far ahead as 2015. Furthermore, according to a more recent report by PhoneArena, we might not see the "unbreakable" aspect either.

The screen will be 5 inches, have Super AMOLED technology and have 1080p resolution: B

Source: Asiae (Korean-language site) via 3g.co.uk

If Samsung hopes to keep up with the competition, it'll probably have to make sure its next flagship model has a 1080p display. If the company wants to keep distinguishing itself from the competition, it'll probably have to offer these 1080p displays in Super AMOLED technology. Whether the difference in resolution is distinguishable to the eye or not, whether there will be enough apps to take advantage of the higher resolution or not, whether Super AMOLED is better than SLCD3 or not, many people will have the perception that a 1080p display is better than a 720p display and that Super AMOLED is better than LCD.

Market perceptions, of course, are what drive people in droves to one phone or another, which is why Samsung cannot afford to lose the spec sheet war to the likes of HTC, Sony and LG. All three are reported to be readying new flagship phones with 1080p displays (yes, HTC is allegedly already preparing a successor to the Droid DNA). Also, I hardly expect Motorola to allow itself to fall a full generation behind in display technology, even if it does lag behind some of the competition in CPU chipsets.

To add further credence to the rumors, reports have already surfaced that Samsung is poised to begin mass production of such displays in 2013. On the other hand, a Samsung device rumored to be a prototypes of the Galaxy S IV has already been spotted on a Rightwave benchmark sporting a 720p display. Of course, prototypes rarely feature the final specs in these benchmark tests, and I wouldn't be surprised if the prototype used an inferior display to make the CPU test higher (having to push fewer pixels usually leads to higher performance scores).

PROCESSOR

The Galaxy S IV will feature an octocore (eight-core) processor: D
Source: EETimes via GSM Arena

The only reason I didn't rate this as an "F" is that Samsung is indeed expected to demonstrate an octocore chip featuring ARM's big.little technology at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2013. The big.little technology is designed by ARM to provide a powerful applications processor while also being easy on the battery. The design consists of a quad-core 1.8 GHz ARM15 processor paired with a quad-core 1.2 GHz ARM7 processor. The quad-core ARM15 processor would kick in for highly intensive applications such as high-end video games, while the quad-core ARM7 would be used to conserve battery life for simpler tasks such as web browsing, tweeting, reading and posting in the RootzWiki forums, and playing Angry Birds.

The problem is that this revolutionary architecture will almost certainly not be mass-produced in time to find its way into the Galaxy S IV. Furthermore, analysts are slating this architecture to appear in tablets initially. This reminds me of Samsung's announcement in late 2011 for the Exynos 5250 processor, its first to feature the ARM15 architecture, and also expected to appear in tablets rather than smartphones. The company demonstrated a working model of the chipset on a development board at the Mobile World Congress in March 2012, but it barely beat the year's end in the market via the Nexus 10.

The CPU will be a quad-core Exynos 5450 processor, codenamed "Adonis": A
Source: DDaily.co.kr (Korean-language site) via UnwiredView.com

This is a far more realistic expectation for the Galaxy S IV. Expected to be clocked anywhere from 1.7 to 2 GHz, the ARM15-based processor is expected to begin mass production in the first quarter of 2013. Considering that ARM15-based processors have finally appeared on the market in dual-core form, it's not a huge leap for Samsung to begin producing a quad-core Exynos 5 processor in a month or two.

OTHER RUMORS

The Galaxy S IV will be released or at least announced in April/May 2013: C
Source: Reuters via PhoneArena

Given the challenges Samsung has faced with mass-producing 1080p Super AMOLED displays and the reports that mass production of the Exynos 5450 processor are only beginning in the first quarter of 2013, I find it unlikely that Samsung will be able to release the Galaxy S IV before June or even July. On the other hand, I could easily see an announcement coming in April or May revealing the Galaxy S IV's final specs.

The Galaxy S IV will pack 3 GB of RAM: B
Source: SamMobile via Android Authority

Do we really need 3 GB of RAM? As I said before, the war is on between Android handset manufacturers to have the best spec sheets, because those are key factors in steering consumer mindshare to one company over another. If this rumor is true, I suspect that it's merely a ploy to notch a win in the spec sheet war. Although Samsung's TouchWiz interface is notoriously bloated, I find it hard to believe that the proprietary skin is able to push that amount of RAM to its limit. On the other hand, perhaps Android 5.0 will find a way to make full use of those 3 giggies, or perhaps the next generation of TouchWiz will be bloated enough to take full advantage of the bump up in RAM.

The Galaxy S IV will feature a 13-megapixel shooter: B
Source: Ubergizmo via Android Authority

The competition, especially from Sony, has already trotted out smartphones that feature 12-13 MP shooters, and Samsung undoubtedly wishes to keep current in the increasingly volatile camera competition with its next top-shelf Galaxy S phone. Given that the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II already have 8 MP cameras, it's the next logical step up for Samsung.

Keep in mind that there is no definitive proof linking the 13 MP camera module reported by Ubergizmo to the Galaxy S IV, and that the Android Authority article urges you to take the rumor with a grain of salt. Still, since cameras are increasingly becoming the differentiating factor among smartphones with similar displays and processors, it stands to reason that Samsung will want to keep pace (they won't pass the competition by with this rumored camera though, especially not Sony).

I should caution you that this report card weighs the earliest wave of rumors about Samsung's next Galaxy S entry, so these rumors (and the final specs) could change greatly. It'll be interesting to come back to this 4-5 months later and see how this report card did in weighing these very early rumors.