Earlier today, Samsung officially announced a revamped version of its ultra-rugged, waterproof smartphone, the “Galaxy S4 Active, which was released back in June, 2013. This new variant has some pretty noticeable differences from the original. For starters, the name has been changed to the “Galaxy S4 Active LTE-A” as it now boasts LTE-Advanced data speeds of up to 150Mbps.

The original S4 Active (SGH-I537) packs a 5-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, a Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600 chipset powered by four 1.9GHz Krait 300 CPU’s, an Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (expandable up to 64GB via microSD), an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2,600 mAh Li-Ion non-removable battery.

The newly-announced S4 Active LTE-A has had some major internal upgrades to bring it in line with the South Korean company’s other flagship devices of 2013. Unlike the standard Galaxy S4 Active, the LTE-A sports a Qualcomm MSM8974 Snapdragon 800 chipset powered by four 2.3GHz Krait 400 CPU’s, the latest Adreno 330 GPU and a very impressive 13-megapixel rear-facing camera.

Unfortunately, at this precise moment in time, the Galaxy S4 Active LTE-A is a Korean exclusive and will be headed to SKT, priced at 900,000 won — which is approximately $855. Hopefully this handset will be released in other parts of the world in the not-too-distant future. I don’t know about you, but this is definitely a phone I’d like to see available for purchase in the U.S.

• SourceSamMobile