Why is Samsung continuing to use an inferior Snapdragon chip on its US market S8?

[wonderbread]

News coming in that Samsung is again going to use Snapdragon SoC (830) for phones in the US market and Exynos (8895) almost everywhere else for its upcoming S8:
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/1...-will-likely-be-under-the-galaxy-s8s-hood.htm

For evidence that Exynos is better in almost every way (a) ask anyone who has used both or (b) look [here].

The question is, Why???

 

[Roman Akert]

My guess is contractual obligation. These deals have probably been made years ago.

The SD is not bad. In some ways it's better. Where it has so far fallen down is battery life. Unfortunately (or naturally) the most important thing for many.

No matter how good the chip, if you run out of juice even the original Motorola Brick phone will out perform it

 

[Dr Claw]

2 reasons:

1) Radio performance on Exynos (for phone use) is not as reliable
2) US Market still needs CDMA (thanks Qualcomm) due to Verizon and Sprint. When CDMA for voice gets phased out maybe you'll start seeing them.

 

[maclancer]

2 reasons:

1) Radio performance on Exynos (for phone use) is not as reliable
2) US Market still needs CDMA (thanks Qualcomm) due to Verizon and Sprint. When CDMA for voice gets phased out maybe you'll start seeing them.

You right and also I don't remember where I read it but I think Samsung have some kind of agreement with Qualcomm to use only the snapdragon processors in North America.

 

[wonderbread]

2) US Market still needs CDMA (thanks Qualcomm) due to Verizon and Sprint. When CDMA for voice gets phased out maybe you'll start seeing them.

What's the big obstacle in designing a Exynos variant with CDMA?

 

[illdini]

Most likely, Samsung would have to pay royalties to Qualcomm. Plus, they (Samsung) would still have to make the chipsets.

It's probably cheaper to just buy the chipsets from Qualcomm.

 

[T48]

The S6 line was all Exynos if I remember correctly. Does Samsungs chip affect something other than voice calls & 4g/ LTE connectivity?

 

[pappcam]

You right and also I don't remember where I read it but I think Samsung have some kind of agreement with Qualcomm to use only the snapdragon processors in North America.

S7E is Exynos in Canada

 

[chazglenn3]

Exynos works just fine with CDMA networks. The S6, S6 edge and Note 5 were all Exynos chips in the US. I owned an S6 edge and Note 5 both bought from and used on Sprint.

 

[maf113]

2 reasons:

1) Radio performance on Exynos (for phone use) is not as reliable
2) US Market still needs CDMA (thanks Qualcomm) due to Verizon and Sprint. When CDMA for voice gets phased out maybe you'll start seeing them.

My Verizon Note 5 uses the Samsung 7420 chip so CDMA is not the issue.

 

[Jaycemiskel]

My money is on it's just cheaper because of licensing. They used to say that Samsung couldn't make enough of their processors to do worldwide launches, but at this point I think they probably can. The S6 was proof of that. However, they had a reason to deal with the extra cost. The snapdragon 810 kinda sucked. I too wish they would just use Exynos everywhere. Battery life is better on the Exynos devices and my guess is they could make the software more optimized for the Exynos than the Snapdragon. On top of that, I bet updates would happen faster because they'd be using the same hardware world-wide. I used to prefer the snapdragon for rooting and roms, but I don't do that anymore. You lose too many features plus Verizon makes it hard as hell anyway. Just my thoughts on it though.

 

[wonderbread]

Exynos works just fine with CDMA networks. The S6, S6 edge and Note 5 were all Exynos chips in the US. I owned an S6 edge and Note 5 both bought from and used on Sprint.

So then it still doesn't add up why Samsung, after already demonstrating it could design and build its own, decided to change course and start relying on Snapdragons again. Apple certainly doesn't have different chipsets for different markets and only having to deal with a single chipset MUST open more doors for optimization. With the move to 10nm, everyone will be happy to see battery savings but when the dust settles I sure hope Qualcomm has closed the multi tasking performance and power efficiency gap.

Still don't understand the business upside for Sammy...

 

[ThrottleJohnny]

Perhaps the 830 chip will see big improvements in performance.