Samsung Galaxy Note9 Performance & Battery Showdown: Snapdragon vs Exynos
by Andrei Frumusanu on November 26, 2018 8:00 AM ESTConclusion - More of the same
While we never reviewed the Note9, and this piece isn’t meant to be a full review, we can still put out a few sentences about the phone as a whole. Here Samsung is able to build a fantastic device, and there’s very little to criticize the Note9 on. The screen is large, bright, sharp and accurate. The camera is leading edge, even though by now there are devices out in the market which manage to compete quite well with Samsung’s best, especially in low light. Samsung makes no compromises in features, and the Note9 has everything: a 3.5mm headphone jack, wireless charging, IP68 rating, and naturally its key feature, the S-Pen.
While on the outside, the Note9 impresses in all aspects regardless where you purchase it from, on the inside things are again quite different as we again see the usage of two very contrasting SoCs.
I think the following picture sums things up quite well:
Like on the Galaxy S9, the Note9’s Exynos variant is just an overall inferior device. Battery life was one aspect that the Exynos S9s fared quite terribly in, and this time around Samsung did manage to somewhat improve the difference to the Snapdragon 845. Unfortunately it’s not enough as the Snapdragon variant still leads.
While the battery disadvantage has somewhat decreased, Samsung has done nothing to improve the performance of the chipset. Here the Snapdragon 845’s software is still leagues ahead of what the Exynos is able to offer, with the latter still not being able to differentiate itself much from the Exynos 8895 in system performance. The benchmark differences are very much also representative of the real-world performance difference of both variants.
In our recent quarterly smartphone guide, I’ve recommended the Snapdragon Note9 alongside the S9s as among the best Android devices you can buy this holiday. The Exynos Note9 in my opinion again doesn’t really make the cut as you’re paying flagship prices for a device that offers less battery life and performance not much better than last year’s phones.
Having finally gotten these results out, I hope to finally turn the page on the topic, as I’m feeling like a broken record and the coverage is akin keeping on beating a dead horse. The situation is eerily similar to the Galaxy S4 SoC situation from a few years back, only that I feel the differences this year were much worse. Huawei’s vertical integration here is pushing the company to make great strides with every generation, and Apple’s silicon is now so well ahead that we’re not really expecting Android vendors to catch up any time soon.
Samsung as a whole needs to decide where they want to go forward with this dual-sourcing strategy as I currently see it as a lose-lose situation for both the smartphone division as well as their chipset business. Hopefully the Exynos 9820 manages to be competitive chipset and S.LSI manages to finally get serious about execution as a SoC vendor, as otherwise the next few years are just going to a rough ride.
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Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
> Please kindly do mention the workings of them.It's a bit too much to cover as it goes into the actual registers of the fuelgauge and the battery drivers. In general you can just read up on Maxim's ModelGauge algos.
https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/partners...
> To add my OP3 fuel gauge chip also blocks installing the 3Ts higher spec battery (3000 vs 3300)
In general kernels can't do anything because the PMIC/FG is initialised by the bootloader, which is again a whole other topic.
Quantumz0d - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
Thanks, that should help. Yes, OnePlus patched it with a firmware update iirc.eastcoast_pete - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
@Andrei: Thanks for this review and the analysis. I know you wouldn't write this w/o strong, more direct evidence, but would you care to speculate on how the strange behavior of the snapdragon Note 9 in the graphics benchmark (allowing temp to rise quite high) might affect battery longevity (actual useful lifetime, as in number of charges before it degrades)? I for one am concerned whenever a Li-ion device is allowing itself to get quite toasty. Lastly, there is also the suspicion that Samsung has massaged the SoC software to recognize GFx and Aztec and allow a "performance mode" when these are detected.Regarding Samsung's insistence of using its S-LSI in-house Exynos whenever possible: I am not even sure that it ends up costing Samsung that much less than using QC's 845. I believe it's a case of what in banking is called throwing good money after bad, i.e. the reluctance to say "well, this (Exynos/Mongoose) didn't work out", and move one. Until the most recent Kirin, the Android mobile SoC landscape really had two players: QC and Samsung. If you lived in a country that only gets the Exynos, there were few competitive non-Exynos handsets to have at the higher end. However, the competitive landscape has changed, with the newest A-76 Kirin designs giving Samsung a run for its money. I wonder if the desire to move $ 800 - $1100 handsets will overcome Samsung's reluctance to use QC flagship SoCs for Europe and Asia also. Otherwise, they're in for a world of hurt. I would be surprised if Huawei isn't working on a pen-input device based on its P 20 Pro to go after the upcoming Note 10.
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
> I know you wouldn't write this w/o strong, more direct evidence, but would you care to speculate on how the strange behavior of the snapdragon Note 9 in the graphics benchmark (allowing temp to rise quite high) might affect battery longevity (actual useful lifetime, as in number of charges before it degrades)?As you say, I don't have any data on this and can't say anything other than it gets hotter than it should be allowed to. In most games it's not an issue but that's besides the point.
eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 - link
Thanks Andrei! I was really surprised by Samsung's apparent willingness to have the 845 Note heat up to levels that one usually wants to avoid when dealing with Li-ion batteries. Especially given the debacle they had with the battery malfunction in their Note 8. At least for here in the US, they have just opened themselves up for a class-action lawsuit if Note 9s have battery issues also. It can now be argued that any damages to the battery are due to defective software that allows overly high temperatures, resulting in premature failure.HStewart - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
I am curious about Note 8 compared to Note 9 on your comparison list.With my Note 8 the OS detects which applications use the batter. One thing is sure, when I switch iPhone 6 to Note 8, I used my phone a lot more.
HStewart - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
Just to be clear - not on specs which was listed - but on performance battery life and …For me the phone is fast enough - how much performances does one need - battery life is different story
But the battery life on Galaxy Watch is a total different story, I get almost a week on it.
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
We never had a Note8 to test.FrankSchwab - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
Probably because, as long as they have a viable second-source, they can beat up on QC to keep the price of the Snapdragon low. "You want how much for 50 million Snapdragons? That's too much. We'll buy a few at that price - say, 20 million - just to keep our relationship intact, and use our Exynos for the other 30 million".Iczeman - Monday, November 26, 2018 - link
Wow, what a disappointment of Exynos performance of S9. Really pity that on European market is not Snapdragon version available as much worth for the same money. Hopefully with S10 will get difference smaller but it's only wish for several years already.