Samsung Galaxy S4 for U.S. has four cores

It's official: Samsung's Galaxy S4, the marquee device due out in the upcoming weeks, will feature a quad-core processor instead of a chipset bearing eight processing cores.

Samsung had kept us guessing when it first announced its Galaxy S4 in New York last month, saying only that in some regions, a 1.9GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 series processor would rev the GS4's engines, and Samsung's own 1.6GHz eight-core Exynos 5 Octa silicon would take care of others.

In addition to some promising processing muscle, the Galaxy S4 features a 5-inch full-HD Super AMOLED display, the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS, and a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera.

In anticipation of record sales, Samsung is blanketing the U.S. with its phone. The Galaxy S4 will be carried by AT&T, Cricket, C Spire, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and will also be sold through Best Buy stores, Costco, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Staples, Target, and Walmart in the coming weeks.

Although each carrier and store will announce its own pricing structure for the smartphone, which Samsung makes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities, expect an on-contract price starting at $199 for the 16GB version and about $50 more for double the internal storage.