Samsung has today announced the Galaxy Mega Plus 5.8, a new addition to its super-sized smartphone lineup that gets a quad-core upgrade under the hood. In almost every other way, however, the handset is identical to its dual-core predecessor, the Galaxy Mega.

When Samsung announced the Galaxy Mega last April, we were kind of surprised by the handset’s approach. It looked like a high-end device on the outside, what with its giant 5.8-inch (there’s also a larger 6.3-inch model) display, but it packed slightly disappointing midrange specifications.

To some degree, Samsung has changed that today with the Galaxy Mega Plus — but it’s certainly not a handset that’s going to topple its flagship phablet the Galaxy Note 3. In fact, it’s really no different to its predecessor, except it has a faster 1.2GHz quad-core chip upgrade.

Aside from the chipset improvements, then, the Galaxy Mega still has a 5.8-inch display with the same qHD (960×540) resolution, the same 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, and the same 2,600mAh battery. The physical design hasn’t changed a bit, either.

If you were planning to buy a Galaxy Mega 5.8, then the new Plus model will certainly be worth picking up over the old one. However, if you already have the old one, it’s unlikely the upgraded processor alone will be worth the upgrade — unless you find the dual-core variant unbearably slow.

As things stand, the Galaxy Mega Plus has only been announced in China, but we expect it to reach other markets over the coming weeks.

• ViaSammyHub