Samsung: The (former) Proproblem with the Exynos
from Kenneth Fritsch 
on February 01, 2021, 14:31 | Write a comment
Samsung has changed. From the brand that used to give everything and became one of the most popular brands ever to a brand that is sometimes less popular than you ever thought possible. I did a poll the other day and 70 out of 130 people said they were not eligible for Samsung. Today I would like to go into this and clarify what exactly happened and how it came about.
Let's maybe start from scratch to understand how Samsung got great in the first place. Samsung means three stars, the group is the world's largest manufacturer of smartphones and a few other things. But Samsung was founded in 1938 as a food company in South Korea. Not North Korea, Samsung is from a free country. For a better overview of how powerful Samsung is: If Samsung Probleme, it can endanger the whole of South Korea. However, Samsung Electronics is only part of the group of companies. You can theoretically build your entire life on Samsung, not a part is missing - just to classify how far-reaching Samsung's branches are. And that's not all, even the Burj Khalifa comes from Samsung. But how can a company of this size lose its reputation like that?
Image: stern.de
Jump to section
Displays
First off, the displays aren't that Proproblem Samsung builds insanely good displays. Almost every smartphone on the market has a Samsung display. And even if I don't have any more precise information, I could imagine that all smartphones I currently own have Samsung displays. And Samsung have always been the ones with the best displays. This has not changed to this day. This can also be seen in the manufacturer's latest flagships. Even if the S21 displays are controversial, at least the S21 Ultra sets new standards. Or compare a Galaxy A51 display with the panel of an Oppo A73 5G. The Oppo really doesn't have a bad display, but Samsung ups the ante. Samsung also learned from the iPhone 6's BendGate and developed a robot that sits on Galaxy smartphones all day to test their robustness. So Samsung takes security seriously.
Software
It's not the software either. Next to Google, Samsung is the most exemplary company when it comes to software updates and the hardware itself is not that either Problem, even if here the Prostart slowly. Samsung builds its own for most of the European devices Processors. That in itself makes sense, which we're also seeing with Huawei and Apple. However, since the Galaxy S10 you have had that Proproblem that their ExynosProprocessors cannot keep up with the chips that are installed in the USA. It wasn't that bad, though, because in previous years it was mostly the other way around.
It is due to the Exynos SoC
But with the Note10 it was already on the horizon, and with the S20 it finally became a reality. While the battery life of the devices from the USA was phenomenal, the European devices looked kind of stupid. It even went so far that I changed my decision to buy a Galaxy S20+ 5G. And from there it became cool to complain about Samsung. It started with the market launch of the S20, when many people gradually turned their backs on Samsung. The S20 Ultra in particular received the most criticism. It is often said that it is not far-reaching enough. The autofocus did Probleme, Huawei had a better camera, Oppo a better display and Apple better battery life. Performance was worse than the Snapdragon chip and inconsistent at that. The list feels like it goes on forever. But Samsung is smart, admits the worse performance, apologizes, and everything is okay... right? No! They made it worse and claimed both Processors are equally good. That's a blatant lie, as some comparative tests have shown. The well-known technology YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss made a video on the subject. Lo and behold, the Exynos is 25 degrees warmer and at the same time 20% slower. That's the kind of difference you notice on a day-to-day basis. And heat is energy. When something gets warm, it's energy that doesn't become power—it becomes unusable. So more energy is needed to get to a destination, and that's exactly what you're seeing here.
Why not just use the Snapdragon?
So – let's try to understand why Samsung doesn't commit to any of the Processors. Let's start with the Snapdragon because that's pretty self-explanatory. Qualcomm builds this chip or has it built by Samsung. That means if Samsung wants a Snapdragon chip, they have to go to Qualcomm and buy some. And that costs Samsung. If you had roses growing in your garden, you wouldn't be buying roses from the flower shop. And to save themselves that, they use the Exynos in many regions, for which they only have to pay for development and production. However, they cannot use it everywhere, for a simple reason. If you should send an SMS, this is regulated here in Germany and in many other regions via the GSM standard. This supports the ExynosProprocessor. But in the US there will be one Proused protocol called CDMA. The Exynos doesn't do that well, while Qualcomm makes their SoCs with CDMA in mind. You're probably wondering why Samsung isn't adding it - so am I.
Image: © 2020 TechnikNews
An agreement?
I've come to the conclusion that there must be some sort of agreement. Qualcomm leaves Samsung theirs Proprocessors, allowing Samsung to be the first to get access to the new Snapdragon generation if they want. However, if Samsung no longer buys chips from Qualcomm, they simply have their chips built by TSMC or something. That would bring Samsung massive losses.
The solution
This year, however, it looks like Samsung is getting the hang of it. They stopped building their own Moongoose CPUs and instead decided to buy pre-built ones to make their Exynos SoCs. Next year they should Processors will also get AMD Graphics and maybe Samsung will then have the courage and know-how to deliver really good Exynos everywhere and finally make their smartphones more attractive again. The already released Galaxy S21 takes a good step in the right direction. As soon TechnikNews was able to test the devices, you can of course find the test reports here.
