Phone enthusiasts who study benchmarks will know that, historically speaking, not all Samsung Galaxy S devices have been created equally. While this year’s Samsung Galaxy S23 used the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 across the board, in the past, Samsung has usually opted for its own Exynos chips outside of the US with slightly disappointing results.
According to The Elec, the company is planning to return to this strategy with the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S24 family of smartphones — at least in part. While the report claims that the S24 and S24 Plus will use either the Exynos 2400 or upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset depending on the region, the flagship S24 Ultra will get the latter in every market.
If correct, that’s an interesting decision by Samsung. On one hand, it makes sense to put your strongest chipset forward in your most expensive product, to avoid the annoyance of overseas buyers who pay top dollar for weaker performance. But on the other, it’s a tacit acknowledgment that Samsung’s own chips aren’t as good as those built by a rival, which isn’t a great look.
That said, it is very possible to overstate these things, and historically the difference between the Exynos and Qualcomm chipsets of the day aren’t obvious to most buyers in day-to-day use, only really becoming obvious in benchmark tests.
And we know that the upcoming Exynos 2400 should be a big leap forward from 2022’s Exynos 2200, with Samsung promising a 1.7x boost to overall speed, and a 14.7x faster AI performance. No doubt that improvement is especially marked, as the Exynos 2300 never saw the light of day (due to issues with speed and stability, according to The Elec).
As well as a new chipset, the regular S24 models are tipped to be available with 12GB RAM and feature a new titanium frame, but largely keep the same camera layout. The Plus version is also rumored to get a screen resolution upgrade, taking it to WQHD and giving it parity with the Ultra variant.
But that doesn’t mean that the S24 Ultra will suddenly not be worth the extra money. Samsung is apparently planning a larger main camera sensor and a new 50MP telephoto lens which should retain the Ultra’s place at the top of our list of the best camera phones. And it’s likely to remain the only way to get the Galaxy Note-like experience, with its built-in S-Pen.
While we’re still some distance from release day, it might be a little sooner than you think. Samsung is apparently planning to go a bit earlier this year to fight the iPhone 15, so a January 2024 launch remains entirely possible.
