Shock Galaxy S6 Leak Reveals Massive Samsung U-Turn

Bloomberg reports Samsung has decided to drop Qualcomm’s next generation 64-bit Snapdragon 810 chipset from the radically reinvented Galaxy S6 due to ongoing problems with overheating. Instead Bloomberg claims Samsung will use its own Exynos chips.

As Android’s biggest selling handset range this is not only a major blow to Qualcomm, who declined to comment on the situation, but a potentially major risk for Samsung. The company produces Exynos powered versions of most of its major devices, but has rarely taken them outside its native South Korea – until now.

The reason behind this is the Exynos chipsets have traditionally had different strengths and weaknesses compared to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon range. Exynos tends to pull ahead in raw computation performance, but gets consistently beaten graphically – a concern given Android 5.0 Lollipop’s more graphically demanding user interface and the exponential growth in mobile gaming.

Furthermore Snapdragon chipsets have become the industry standard in non-Apple devices and are where app developers prioritise app compatibility.

A notable example of this is the Nexus 9 where manufacturer HTC opted for an Nvidia Tegra K1 chipset and a number of Android apps, including high profile game GTA Vice City, were unstable or refused to run altogether. Months later many still remain incompatible.