The Exynos 2100 is just catching up with Qualcomm, which is exactly Samsung’s plan

The Exynos 2100 looks like Samsung’s best mobile chip to date.

It features ARM’s Cortex-X1 core with three other Cortex-A78 cores and four less powerful A55 cores to play nicely with your battery. It also has ARM’s Mali-G78 GPU for 40% better graphics than the previous generation, a three-core NPU for better AI on the device, is 5G ready (both Sub-6GHz and mmWave) and was built on Samsung see 5nm process. technology to save even more battery.

Expect to see it in all of Samsung’s best phones – including the looming Galaxy S21 – during 2021. In a world where no one has bothered to take care of the chip in their phone and how much better one particular brand can be than anything else, it would be great and everyone would be happy.

Here’s the thing. We care that one brand of chip has better AI response times, takes better photos, has better 3D graphics, gets better battery life and kicks off other brands’ pants when it comes to connectivity, especially the kind of LTE and 5G. I’m talking, of course, about the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform.

The reason why the latest Snapdragon will always be a better chip than the latest Exynos is no secret. Qualcomm is a company that specializes in selling mobile chips, and its flagship products are actually the only focal point. It has long been the only focus that the company has had some great ideas. It’s necessary to license some of these, but others are just part of what makes a Snapdragon so damn good. Samsung and Qualcomm may both start with ARM reference core designs, but this is where the similarities end and the Snapdragon 888 will once again outperform the Exynos 2100 in almost every measurable way.

The Exynos2100 will be good, but the Snapdragon 888 will be better.

And Samsung is fine with that, because it’s not a company that only builds mobile chips.

This is the thing no one really wants to hear: the Exynos SoC exists only as a way for Samsung to save money on its top and middle phones. It is the same year after year; in some countries Samsung has to license Qualcomm modem technology to even try to compete with the latest Snapdragon SoC (System on a Chip). To make things easier, Samsung simply acquired a Snapdragon SoC for phones from the continents, which are mostly North American. Everywhere else you get an Exynos powered model that is much cheaper to buy. Yes, Samsung has to buy from Samsung in many cases. Processors are one of them.

Samsung can buy a Snapdragon 888 (which everyone is sure what the Galaxy S21 will be capable of) for every model in every country and everything will just work. Everything will also be much more expensive and no business that wants to make a profit likes it when things are more expensive.

Maybe we should just use those things and not try to measure everything.

Do not get me wrong: the Exynos 2100 is an excellent chip and can use many devices. It will probably be upgraded and connected to an AMD GPU to drives the inevitable Galaxy Z Fold 3. But there will be noticeable differences in performance compared to a Snapdragon 888 model. Millions of people living outside of North America will buy and love a Samsung-powered Exynos phone because the chip works so well. Maybe the people who are not the best at things like the smartphone chip have the right idea.

But you will read everywhere on the internet, also here Android Central how users see better performance from the Qualcomm-powered Galaxy S21 than from the Exynos-powered model. Some people are going to be angry about this, others just will not care, but most will just deal with it because it is the same way every year.

There’s a silver lining though – Exynos chips are getting better year after year and with ARM’s new Cortex-X program, Samsung is really on the verge of a breakthrough. With ARM helping to build core and tune for the right balance between performance and power, and AMD working to deliver a world-class mobile GPU, an Exynos chip will be just as good or better in the near future. all but North American 5G networks. And if you do not live in North America, you do not even have to worry about it.

However, it is not going to be this year. The Exynos 2100 will be good and most users will not care, but expect the Qualcomm versions of the S21 to be the ‘best’ versions and Samsung is going to save a lot of money by building things this way.