A hot potato: It's long been the case that Samsung has released two versions of its flagship handsets: one with the latest Snapdragon chip for the US and a few select markets, and the other with its Exynos SoC for the rest of the world. But some people aren't happy with this setup and have started a petition demanding Samsung drop the in-house processor from its phones.
The petition, which has been signed by over 21,000 people, states: "Phones with Exynos SoC chips [sic] are shown to perform slower, have less battery life, use inferior camera sensors and processing, overheat and throttle faster, amongst other issues."
The petition does have a point. Notebookcheck writes that the Exynos 990 found in the Galaxy S20 phones delivers a peak performance to power ratio of 13.0/W, whereas the Snapdragon 865 from the US version of the handsets comes in at 19.6/W. Even last year's Snapdragon 855 beats the current Exynos 990, boasting a ratio of around 15/W.
Other benchmarks show the Snapdragon performing better than the Exynos. Samsung's chip lags behind in AnTuTu, Geekbench, 3DMark, and AITUTU tests, though it did beat Qualcomm's SoC in PCMark. We should also note, this is not a new development. When we reviewed the Galaxy S9+ back in 2018, the duality of SoC equipment was there and we called it "an Exynos fail."
Image credit: Beebom
The petition also notes that Samsung uses its own-brand camera sensors, but it uses parts from Sony in the US versions.
If the company won't use Snapdragon chips in all its phones, the petition calls for transparency about the differences between the two SoCs, or that it prices the Exynos version of the handsets lower than the Snapdragon alternatives.
Will Samsung listen to the petition's demands? It's highly unlikely, especially as its Exynos chipset division has surpassed Apple as the third-largest supplier in the smartphone industry.
Image credit: DANIEL CONSTANTE via Shutterstock