EDIT (4/14, 11am EST): SamMobile, the original source of the rumor, has since looked further into the alleged Geekbench listing and found it was faked, actually belonging to a Japanese Galaxy S23 Ultra rather than a new device. The original story follows.
Samsung may be driving the Galaxy Z Flip 6 with surprisingly outdated tech, according to new benchmark findings first found by SamMobile.
A Geekbench test entry with the expected model number of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 shows the phone running Android 14 as expected, but running it on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. That's the same chip as the Galaxy Z Flip 5 uses, instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip found in the Galaxy S24 series, and that had been widely assumed to be appearing in Samsung's latest foldables.
This version carries more memory however. It's listed as using 12GB RAM, rather than the 8GB that every Z Flip model has used since the original.
Confusingly, we've seen this same model number appear on Geekbench before with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, but only 8GB RAM like previous Z Flips. This perhaps suggests Samsung is experimenting with different performance packages for the Z Flip 6, although it seems very late in the day to be playing around with such a big part of a phone's construction considering the launch is likely only a couple of months away.
Why use an old chipset?
This isn't the first unexpected chip rumor we've heard for this year's Galaxy Z Flip. The previous one suggested that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 could come with an Exynos 2400 chip for some regions though, which is Samsung's current in-house flagship chipset rather than last year's Snapdragon chip.
If it turns out the Galaxy Z Flip 6, or at least one version of it, comes with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, it probably won't be a phone-killing decision. Outright performance arguably isn't a priority for the Galaxy Z Flip series as it is for Samsung's other flagship phones, plus Galaxy AI clearly works on the Gen 2 silicon as we've seen from recent updates, meaning any new updates Samsung comes up with for its generative AI features should still function perfectly well on it too.
But we'd at least hope a Gen 2-powered Z Flip would be cheaper to buy than it would have been with the Gen 3. In fact, now that Samsung's being pressured by cheaper foldables like the Motorola Razr 2023 or the Nubia Flip 5G, offering a cheaper model would be a wise decision.
This is speculation for now, as we'll only know the truth about the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Galaxy Z Fold 6 (plus maybe an Ultra or FE Z Fold model too) this summer, assuming Samsung keeps to previous years' launch timings. With the best foldable phones category more competitive than ever, we'll be watching intently to see how Samsung tries to keep itself at the top of the pile.
