While the Samsung Galaxy S9 has yet to launch, that hasn’t kept the web from running rampant regarding rumors of the successor to this unreleased phone. A recent Galaxy S10 leak gives us some rumors about what we might see from this upcoming phone.
Early signs from the Galaxy S10 leak point to the phone using a 7nm Snapdragon 855 chipset. This news comes from a Qualcomm contractor who has claimed that he’s currently working on such a processor, and was spotted by leaker Roland Quandt.
It’s no wonder the Snapdragon 855 is currently in development, and with the fact that the phone is likely around a year out from release, the Samsung Galaxy S10 leak regarding the Snapdragon 855 could certainly be reliable. This is likely to be Qualcomm’s most powerful chip at the time of the release, which means that the Galaxy S10 will be one of the fastest phones on the market when it launches. What is worth noting, however, is that the chip is a 7nm model.
The 7nm design means that it’s smaller than the 10nm Snapdragon 845 that will be included in the Galaxy S9, which may allow for both better performance and better efficiency. This means that whatever phone the Snapdragon 855 is featured in may see an increase in power over this generation as well as a longer battery life. With the majority of high-end flagships already lasting a full day on a single charge (assuming moderate use) it will be interesting to see how much the battery improves with the ability to include a smaller processor.
Leaker Quandt has also noted that the chipset will most likely include Qualcomm’s X24 modem, which suggests that it will support download speeds of up to 2Gbps – a significant upgrade over the 1.2 Gbps max included in the X20 modem featured in the Snapdragon 845.
It’s important to note that while the Galaxy S10 leak suggests we’ll see the Snapdragon 855 included in the upcoming phone, it’s likely that we’ll only see such a technology in the United States and China, with the rest of the world using Samsung’s own proprietary Exynos chipset. We don’t yet know what that chipset is capable of, but we expect it to be comparable in some way to the Snapdragon 855 processor suggested by this most recent Galaxy S10 leak.
Keep in mind, too, that the processor suggested by this Galaxy S10 leak won’t only be available in the S10 and will probably be featured in the majority of flagships that year. Still, this is one of the first confirmations (provided the rumor is correct) that the chipset is in development, as well as a sneak peek into what exactly we can expect from this new technology.
While the Galaxy S10 leak gives us a look at the sort of power we might be seeing with this new flagship, it doesn’t give us much of an idea of the sorts of features we’ll see with next year’s flagship. Anticipation around the web regarding the upcoming Galaxy S9 has been lukewarm, largely due to the fact that there aren’t a lot of significant improvements when compared to the S8. It features a better chip and is no doubt faster, and the camera is an improvement as the focal point of this generation’s release, but overall it looks like more of the same. The Galaxy S9 looks almost exactly like the S8 and isn’t providing anything novel that might convince buyers to make the jump from this generation to the next. If Samsung hopes to compete with Apple with the release of the Galaxy S10, they’ll likely have to bring something new to the table.
With the release of the iPhone X, Apple brought something we haven’t seen before to a market that was becoming largely iterative. While face recognition technology wasn’t new by any means, Apple was the first to bring this new form of the tech to the smartphone market, with a unique sensor that can adapt to changes in users’ appearance from day to day. When you’re wearing glasses or growing a beard, the phone will still be able to unlock normally rather than locking you out. Additionally, the same FaceID technology is capable of adding augmented reality features and cool new quirks such as the Animoji. The iPhone X struck a chord with consumers, and quickly became the fastest-selling iPhone in history. If Samsung hopes to emulate that success, they may have to pull out something novel that can impress a western market that is currently enamored with one of their top competitors.
Hopefully this Galaxy S10 leak is just one of many moving forward, as many are already eagerly anticipating the launch of this new phone since the Galaxy S9 has failed to offer anything significantly exciting. We’ll have to wait until we get closer to release to see whether we’re going to get the massive step up that we expect.
