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No More Exynos: a petition demanding Samsung to use Snapdragon as a standard

23.3.2020

Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson

An online petition is asking Samsung to stop using Exynos System-on-Chip. Although the petition is pointless, it does reveal that Samsung is selling two versions of its flagships. And one more than the other.

Samsung has a problem. And it’s called «Exynos». A small but loud minority of smartphone enthusiasts have had it up to here with Samsung's own System-on-Chip (SoC). It’s a system that’s generally served up to buyers of the new flagships from South Korea. A petition on change.org is demanding Samsung to stop using Exynos SOCs. Furthermore, supporters of the petition want Samsung to use sensors that meet industry standards instead of their in-house solutions.

The petition might be a bit of a joke, but the problem is not. Exynos SoCs perform less well than Snapdragon that Samsung also uses.

Lives slow, dies young

Here’s the problem: In the US, Samsung releases a version of its flagship phones with a Snapdragon SoC. While the North American version is also equipped with Sony camera sensors, the phones launched in the rest of the world feature solutions made in South Korea. Daniel H. is a change.org user and has had enough of these shenanigans. He wants Samsung to offer best quality for everyone.

Based on experience, and studies from numerous sources online, we believe Samsung's parts to be inferior to their US counterparts.

Daniel H, change.org, 23. März 2020

The underlying accusations against Samsung are clear: Daniel H. knows that the company uses parts that don’t deliver the best a smartphone could currently deliver. Let’s take a look at Samsung Galaxy S10, to give you an idea. In his test on YouTube, Phonebuff demonstrates that Snapdragon-S10 performs far better than the Exynos version. While the Snapdragon phone takes 2 minutes and 2 seconds to tackle a certain sequence of app starts and loads, it takes the Exynos version 2 minutes and 12 seconds.

In his petition, Daniel claims that Samsung is aware of this and failing to be transparent about it. He wants Samsung be open about this, so customers can make their own decision whether they would prefer to get an imported version from the US. Daniel’s favourite scenario would be if Samsung stopped using their in-house developments, such as Exynos, altogether and, instead, started using Snapdragon and other industry standards by default.

The Exynos phone also proved to be weaker when it was put to the battery test. After 16 hours in standby mode and 6 hours and 59 minutes in working mode with the screen switched on – that’s a grand total of 22 hours and 59 minutes – the Exynos version gives up. The Snapdragon phone manages 16 hours in standby mode and 8 hours and 2 minutes in working mode – that’s 24 hours and 2 minutes in total – before it dies. So we’re talking 63 minutes worth of battery power that are missing in the Exynos version.

Nonsensical online petitions

Online petitions have a questionable reputation as it is. They are in no way official but suggest that they are. Critics have denounced online petitions as the desperate voice of angry citizens on the Internet.

By contrast, their proponents claim that online petitions show what the people really want – whether these are smartphone buyers or voters. Free market research, so to speak.

In the case of many petitions, the facts are unclear. Bold statements are made. For example, «Denying a funeral is, surely, an infringement of basic human rights,» spoken by a mother who wants a ban on parole for her daughter’s murderer. This begs the question: Is this a fact? At the end of the day, as long as it sounds good, users can support any kind of cause, whether they know the facts or not.

When it comes to Samsung's SoCs, the facts are clear: Exynos performs worse than Snapdragon and Samsung continues to make Exynos phones.

But Samsung is in no way obliged to look at the petition, let alone react to it.

39 people like this article

Dominik Bärlocher

Senior Editor

dominik.baerlocher@digitecgalaxus.ch

Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.

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No More Exynos: a petition demanding Samsung to use Snapdragon as a standard

Lives slow, dies young

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