Exynos versus Snapdragon has, historically, been a big talking point in techier smartphone circles. The two processor brands have dueled for the top performer spot in the Android space for the past decade. Not this year though; the Samsung Galaxy S23 series ships exclusively with Qualcomm silicon (we haven’t noted any regional exceptions so far). A “Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy” to be precise.
At first, glance, simplifying the global product lineup with a single chipset seems long overdue. Enthusiast consumers no longer have to dive into the Galaxy S23 spec sheet, only to lament different features or performance points depending on the chip powering their region. Global parity is assured with the S23 series, something we haven’t been able to say for some years.
A unified chipset is also allowing Samsung to lean into platform-specifics. For instance, the Galaxy S23 series makes use of Qualcomm’s cutting-edge imaging smarts for semantic segmentation for enhanced quality and new photography features. We won’t have to fret over differences in image signal processing or which chipset has the better graphics driver support (Diablo Immortal on Exynos was famously a trainwreck, to name one example) this year. However, this does mean we are equally missing out on Exynos pushing the envelope in areas Snapdragon has typically been slower, such as video encoding/decoding and ray tracing.
Global S23 parity is assured with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy.
Understandably, the Exynos versus Snapdragon headache is one that Samsung has been reluctant to discuss openly. Especially in numerous years of controversial silicon performance, such as last year’s models. And yet Exynos has long been a feather in Samsung’s cap.
Aside from Apple, Samsung is currently the only smartphone manufacturer producing its silicon. The company also helped Google develop its semi-custom Tensor processor line-up. Not only does that lend the brand additional prestige but, in theory, Exynos ensures Samsung retains low-level input on the direction of the performance and essential features of its handsets. Not to mention it’s a healthy buffer against Qualcomm’s dominance in the Android SoC space. With that in mind, the absence of an Exynos-powered Galaxy S23 is a glaring omission.
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