I've never liked Samsung's approach to equipping its smartphones. This practice of dividing models into American and European, when models for the United States are equipped with Qualcomm processors, and for Europe and Russia – with Exynos, always gave a kind of fake. Not that the latter are completely worthless, but just as there is no second freshness fish, there are no flagship processors of the second grade. After all, Exynos is inferior to Qualcomm's solutions in literally everything – from actual performance to battery life. But this year the gap will be even wider, and this is not good.
Galaxy Note 20 for the Russian market will be worse than for the American
Galaxy Note 20, which will be presented in early August, like all other Samsung flagships, will be released in two hardware modifications. But if the Galaxy S20 was equipped with Exynos 990 and Qualcomm 865 processors, which roughly matched each other, then in the case of the American version of the Galaxy Note 20, the Snapdragon 865 chip will be replaced with the Snapdragon 865+. It is an improved modification of the original 'stone', but with higher computational power. At the same time, the European one – the one that will arrive in Russia – will be equipped with the old Exynos 990.
Exynos or Qualcomm
Exynos processors have always been worse than Snapdragon
It's obvious to everyone why Samsung still hasn't given up on Exynos processors. After all, this is her own product, on which she makes money, selling European versions of her smartphones for the same money as American ones, but at the same time spending less money on their production. Another thing is that I am not satisfied with the company's approach, which involves the production of devices of the first and second class. How else to call the flagships, which are equipped with chips that are obviously losing in all respects?
But if usually the lag of Exynos was bearable, since the difference in performance and autonomy with Snapdragon reached no more than 10%, now this gap will be even greater. Despite the fact that Snapdragon 865+ is not an independent processor, but an improved version of the original 865, the new product is better than its predecessor in all respects.
Why Snapdragon 865+ is better than Snapdragon 865
Galaxy Note 20 for the US market promises to be the most powerful smartphone on Android
- The Snapdragon 865+ is the first mobile processor over 3 GHz;
- The Snapdragon 865+ is 10% more powerful than the Snapdragon 865 and is nearly equal in performance to the A13 Bionic
- Snapdragon 865+ features FastConnect 6900 modem with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2;
- The graphics of the Adreno 650 received a performance increase of another 10% over the regular version.
I have nothing against Samsung making money, even if something – namely, its own processors – is not very good at it. However, it makes me sick to think that Koreans are deliberately going to deprive some of the Galaxy Note 20 buyers of some of its potential. After all, it turns out that the performance of the phablet for the American market will be 15-20% higher than for the European and Russian, and there is no getting away from this. The only way to avoid the imposed restrictions is to buy the gray version imported from the USA.
It is especially disgusting that the Galaxy Note 20 will cost no less than $ 1,000, or even more. Therefore, Samsung shamelessly experiments with the audience of users who bring it the main income, checking how much patience they have. So far there is enough patience, but I would not hope that the margin of its strength is so great. Therefore, one or two such experiment, and the once loyal fans will spit on Samsung and go to competitors. At least that's what I would do.