One has only to write about one of the Samsung Galaxy flagships, as in the comments heated debate unfolds about which processor should be in it. Someone says that Exynos is not as bad as they say about it. The rest actively argue with him and prove that apart from Snapdragon they will never agree to anything. As usual, there are no right or wrong. There are pluses both there and there. Although, in fairness, a third-party processor is really better in many ways. But personally, I don't think he's good enough to run after him on purpose. Now, public discontent has led Samsung to comment on this. What did they say and how did they justify their trademark Exynos?
This processor is rejected by many.
Why people don't like processors at Exynos
Indeed, some Samsung smartphone users feel cheated. This is due to the fact that Samsung has decided to equip its three new flagship models with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset in almost all major markets except Europe.
It is in Europe that new items such as Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 + and Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G are equipped with Samsung's Exynos 990. At the same time, the flagships of the “Galaxy S” line, sold in the US and China, will be equipped with the Snapdragon chipset.
The only exception to this established tradition was five years ago. Back then, all Samsung Galaxy S6 models were powered by the Exynos 7420. It was 2015 and the models were not shared by market. This was due to the fact that the Snapdragon 810 had a tendency to overheat, which forced Samsung to take this step.
Now imagine the following … You bought an expensive Samsung smartphone. You use it, everything seems to be fine, but then you find out that your model is performing worse than it could. Those who bought the same device on another market got something more productive. As the saying goes: “But now it was a little offensive.”
What Samsung Thinks About Exynos Processors
Last week Samsung broke down and made a statement. It states that the Galaxy S20 is a smartphone that has been reimagined to change our perception of the world. Depending on the region, the Galaxy S20 will ship with either the Exynos 990 or the Snapdragon 865. The Exynos and Snapdragon processors go through the same rigorous tests, run through real-world testing scenarios, and generally have the same requirements. All of this is done to ensure consistent and optimal performance throughout the smartphone's lifecycle.
Samsung is very confident in its processors.
It sounds, of course, beautiful, but is everything really so great. Some Samsung fans in Europe are upset because they feel like they are paying more for what they consider to be the worst product. They are confident that the Exynos 990 is worse than the Snapdragon 865 due to the fact that the former “suffocates” under load. This adversely affects gameplay and may result in loss of frame rate or resolution.
Why Exynos is worse than Snapdragon
The Snapdragon 865 mobile platform uses ARM Cortex-A77 processor cores, giving it a 20% performance advantage over the Exynos 990 chipset, which uses the older Cortex-A76 cores. And the Adreno 650 GPU powered by Snapdragon 865 outperforms the ARM Mali G77 GPU used with the Exynos 990.
I personally have more than once come across people who are simply confident in the significant advantage of the “dragon”. Not so long ago, one of the commentators on the site wrote that he first bought the Galaxy S10 on Exynos, after which he realized his mistake, sold it and bought himself the American version on Snapdragon. In his words, it was worth it and he is completely satisfied with the result. But what does our Ivan Kuznetsov think about Samsung smartphones?
Petition against Samsung
Some time ago, a petition was created on Change.org asking Samsung to stop selling flagship phones based on its own Exynos chips. The authors of the petition wanted to collect 35,000 signatures. At the time of this writing, about 500 signatures were missing before this figure. You can contribute if you like.
The essence of the petition boils down to the fact that users are asking Samsung to stop selling their smartphones on its own Exynos processor and completely switch to Qualcomm's Snapdragon, like many cheaper smartphones. There is one more difference between models for different markets. So, in the American market, the flagships of the Korean manufacturer are equipped with camera sensors from Sony, and in the rest – with their own sensors.
Samsung's sensors are not that bad, but many think they are inferior to Sony.
According to many tests, phones for the European market are indeed inferior to their “American brothers” in many respects. They run slower, have less battery life, use poor camera sensors, poor image processing algorithms, and overheat faster.
The petition also says that users would be grateful if Samsung simply admitted that smartphones are indeed different for different markets. And it also set a different price, without forcing users to overpay for less good smartphones.
Every year, the petitioners hoped that Samsung would release the same device for all markets. Well, or at least make different models work the same way. However, this did not happen over and over again, and the performance gap, according to some sources, only widened.
We can say that even if the manufacturer reads the petition, it is unlikely that he will change his mind and start releasing all smartphones on Snapdragon.
How should I feel about Exynos processors
From myself, I can add that the performance difference is really not very pleasant. True, under normal use conditions, the average user will hardly notice the difference. Therefore, it is not a fact that it is worth running around the gray killers and looking for the American version so that it just was.
Is the difference between these processors so big?
If you play demanding games all the time, it may make sense to search, but the difference, even for you, may not be as big as people say.
At the same time, I do not really understand and do not really accept this approach with the division of markets. If you already produce different models, try to make sure that users pay different money for them. Moreover, this is not speculation, and many are really unhappy with the Korean decision. The company needs to sit down and seriously think about it.