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Android’s most popular smartphone maker, Samsung Electronics, has allegedly chosen to include Qualcomm’s latest processor in its 2016 flagship line. At least some variants of the Galaxy S7, Samsung’s expected update to its premium offering of the Galaxy S6, will be powered by the Snapdragon 820, Qualcomm’s powerful chip that’s expected to run other Android flagships as well.
Some Galaxy S7 variants will reportedly include its homemade Exynos processor. Samsung chose the Exynos 7420 processor over Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 for the Galaxy S6, seemingly due to overheating concerns. Samsung had previously chosen Qualcomm chips for its phones before this year’s flagship, and Samsung’s decision to exclude the Snapdragons represented a significant loss for the chipmaker. For Samsung, the move constituted a gain in independence as well as praise for its efficient Exynos chip. The Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are considered to be amongst the fastest smartphones currently on the market. However, Samsung has hinted at collaborating with Qualcomm once more, stating that it is open to choosing Qualcomm chips for future phones. If Samsung finds the Qualcomm a suitable alternative to its own Exynos chips, it may very well opt to return to past practices and distribute a mix of its own chips and Qualcomm’s into its smartphones.
As a result, it seems Samsung is sticking to its own processor for Galaxy S7 variants outside of the United States and China. Those two markets will allegedly receive the first Galaxy S7s, which will come with Qualcomm’s chip. The Snapdragon 820 has been closely watched after the issues with the 810. The new chip is a quad-core processor, meaning it has four cores. This change represents a departure from some Android flagship chips currently on the market, which have up to eight cores. However, Qualcomm is giving the 820 a new technology designed to make more efficient use of its four cores, a move it hopes will give allow for a powerful chip. In early tests, it seems the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 features improved single core processing, an important factor as not all applications will make use of more than one core.
Samsung has not responded to the rumors of its reintroduction of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 into its Galaxy line. As it stands now, this report is unconfirmed and the chip used may change before the Galaxy S7 launched early next year.