The Samsung Galaxy S24 could see the return of Samsung's in-house chipsets for certain markets, says a source speaking to Pocket-Lint. And we're not sure if this is a good thing or not.
As the source tells it, Samsung-made Exynos chipsets will be found in certain Galaxy S24 models in 2024, as well as the Galaxy S23 FE, the rumored larger but more basic follow-up to the Galaxy S23 series that should launch later this year.
The Galaxy S23 series uses Qualcomm-built Snapdragon chipsets around the world in the form of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chips. This is unusual as in the past, most countries where Samsung phones are sold would get an Exynos version of the phone, identical other than the chipset.
As Exynos is Samsung's own brand, it makes a lot of business sense to not spend more on an external company's components and instead develop proprietary parts, like Apple does with its A-series iPhone chips. But due to outstanding business commitments with Qualcomm, Samsung continues to use Snapdragon chips in U.S. Galaxy S handsets, as well as in a few other countries such as Samsung's home of South Korea.
A potentially lesser product
Most smartphone customers are not going to check which chip is powering their phone, and as long as all the other features on a phone are the same globally, does it even matter? The problem is that it can matter. Historically, Exynos chips have not been as powerful as Snapdragon equivalents, giving Samsung flagship phones an unfortunate two-tier system around the world where American and Korean buyers get a better version than anyone in Europe.
We can see this in practice with Google's Tensor series of chips, which are also built by Samsung. The most recent chip in this series is the Tensor G2 used in the Pixel 7 series, Pixel 7a and Pixel Fold, which scores well in GPU benchmarks but lags behind its Snapdragon equivalent in CPU power and power efficiency.
A Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event is taking place tomorrow (July 26th), and there's a small chance we'll see or at least hear about the Galaxy S23 FE there. Mostly the rumors about the contents of Samsung's presentation have however revolved around new Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 foldables, plus a refreshed Galaxy Watch 6 smartwatch and Galaxy Tab S9 family of tablets.
We expect the Galaxy S24 line to launch next year around February, which gives us a lot more time for more rumours to appear and fill the gaps in our knowledge.
