Joe Maring / Digital Trends
The swelled Android dog from Samsung — the Galaxy S24 series — are out to challenge the smartphone domination top in 2024 . There are small-scale design improvements , a faster chip , a slightly tweaked tv camera , a large jump in caloric management capacity , and loads of AI hype around them .
Some of those AI characteristic come in courtesy of Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy silicon , while others arebuilt in - house or with some avail from Google . But behind the scene , Samsung has again employed a controversial two - bit sales formula .
Joe Maring / Digital Trends
In the U.S. , all three Galaxy S24 model will get out magnate from Qualcomm ’s flagship chip . In other market , Samsung will only gird theGalaxy S24 Ultrawith Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip , while the more affordableGalaxy S24and Galaxy S24 Plus trims will get the in - house Exynos 2400 C.P.U. .
A shameful lack of faith
Affordable is a proportional terminal figure here . The Galaxy S24 Plus bulge at $ 1,000 in the U.S. , while the entry - point rendering will have you spending at least $ 800 . The Galaxy S24 Ultra has been spared the Exynos treatment , seemingly because it ’s even more expensive this yr at $ 1,300 .
That ’s a $ 100 exchange premium over theiPhone 15 Pro Max , making it the most expensive non - folding phone out there . Or , as some Wall Street analysts would say , instauration comes at a cost . But that ’s not the worst part . evidently , Samsung itself seems to have little faith in its own Exynos silicon .
Nowhere in the prescribed press cloth does Samsung advertize the sexual morality of its Exynos 2400 as much as Qualcomm ’s silicon . The embargoed entropy transport to the U.S. media does n’t bring up Exynos at all . Who is Samsung hear to hide the Exynos from ? The mass medium , or the buyers who do n’t get to see an Exynos central processing unit marketed feverishly for a thousand - dollar sound ?
Now , the Exynos debacle is not exactly a arcanum . I ’ve been come after the poor flight of Samsung ’s mobile processors since the Exynos 990 ( inside the Galaxy S20 series ) , which was exhaustively trounced by the Snapdragon 865 back then . A year after , the Snapdragon 888 essay Samsung ’s Exynos 2100 demand to cover a lot of ground , especially in the graphics department .
In 2022 , the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 once again speed ahead of the Exynos 2200 by a healthy gross profit . But a phone is not merely how fast its central processor can go . It ’s a sum of many parts . Alas , the Exynos shortcomings spill over into many other department , as well .
The experts atDxOMarkandindependent testinghave also highlighted that Qualcomm - power Galaxy flagships offer up a better camera experience than those with an Exynos chip inside . That ’s quite ironical , given the fact that Samsung takes a lot of pridefulness in the camera chop of its Galaxy S portfolio .
Side - by - side comparability have also laid bleak the fact that Galaxy flagships with a Qualcomm processor inside can manage sustained blossom performance for a tenacious duration , consume less power under load , and fare better at idle index consumption . App launch speed tests also show that the Qualcomm - power variants are snappy . XDA product forums , Reddit , X , and Samsung ’s own Community confab are littered with Exynos - Galaxy ailment .
At this juncture , we do n’t know if the Exynos 2400 will overturn the fortunes , but for the kind of money Samsung is ask for even the cheapest Galaxy S24 variant , I would much rather place in Qualcomm - gage Android flagship such as the upcomingOnePlus 12 . And not alone for the added dash of firepower . The reason is AI , and it extends well into the time to come of the entire smartphone industry .
2024 is a different ballgame
Google ’s Pixel 8 Prohas made it profusely clear that AI is not the same kind of vaporware as NFTs , crypto , and Web3 . Generative AI whoremaster based on with child language models are here to stay and change phones in a meaningful way . Qualcomm and MediaTek are doing their best to cram productive AI smarts inside telephone set across agio and midrange section .
Even Samsung went all - in with the Galaxy AI theme for its latest phones . Nothing has come out of their garish demos and bold promises so far . Samsung can change that . The Galaxy S24 call neat tricks like real - meter representative and textbook translation for interpreter calls , an offline language interpreter , and a New World chat assist that complicate your content ( akin totools like the Paragraph AI keyboard ) .
A message summarization system for Android Auto à la , the excellent Shortwave email app , and some ChatGPT - esque summarization features for musical note - taking and audio recording .
But then , the real “ wow ” class of generative AI prank are tied to Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 , and so far , we do n’t bonk if the Exynos 2400 will pull them off as well . Among them is Generative Edit , which let you move around bailiwick in a picture and adjust the canvass size by adding more component to it using generative AI .
Call it pixel - level smart machine - fill , if you will . It almost work like illusion , as seen in the Adobe video above . It wo n’t be as impressive on smartphones , but the visual modality could be a precursor of great things to follow . Qualcomm state the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 enables textbook - to - image generation using Stable Diffusion in less than a second .
The chip also opens the doors for voice - enabled photograph and TV redaction . There ’s even a system to polish off objects in picture , just like Google ’s Magic Eraser feature film for Pixel phone .
Samsung’s double whammy
These features might sound gimmicky to some , but there ’s a lot more to on - equipment reproductive AI than just summate some snazzy effect to pic . It is run short to decouple a mountain of unconscious process from the cloud , make task a lot quicker as well as safe . TheGemini Nano example doing its line of work on the Pixel 8 Prois just one model , with the Galaxy S24 powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 following in those footfall .
In this vitrine , Qualcomm take it upon itself to bake those AI features on its Si . Unfortunately , we do n’t know if Samsung went the redundant mile with these on - gimmick generative AI capacity for the Exynos 2400 , while also narrowing the public presentation and experience gulf with Qualcomm - driven flagships .
We have reached out to Samsung for clarity on the situation , but so far , it seems hundreds and thousands of Galaxy S24 shopper are in for a forged Exynos surprisal this yr than they were in 2022 or the yr prior .
It ’s just dry that Samsung ’s bet on AI is what ’s go to bite the fans . listen you , these are sports fan who bear a lot more for a Samsung flagship in their dwelling house food market than what an mediocre U.S.-based buyer has to part ways with , so there ’s that prick world , too .
