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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Speedfriend - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 - link
My iPhone 7 is slower than my Pixel 2XL is real usage, and constantly shuts down updating of my trading app in the background which is incredibly annoyingAceMcLoud - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
Hmm, exact opposite experience for me. What trading app are you using?darkich - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 - link
Honestly, I don't feel even the slightest of those supposed performance setbacks in my Exynos Note 9 ..everything I do is performed flawlessly.The webpage editing on the DeX, even Linux beta on DeX.
I just edited and upsampled a 2.5 minute 1080p into 4K video in less than 2 minutes while simultaneously recording it in 60fps 4K via DU recorder (to have an evidence).
I'll post it to YouTube of anyone is interested!
darkich - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 - link
*simultaneously recording the editing process.darkich - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 - link
Also, the autonomy has been nothing short of great with an exceptionally consistent results.The device constantly gives 10h SoT (calculated).
And again, if anyone is interested I can provide link to screenshots and battery statistics.
Andrei maybe one the most knowledgeable guy about phones on the planet, but I start to question the objectivity of his overall assessments.
You diss the Exynos autonomy based just on one single battery benchmark?!?
Sorry but that's just NOT a good argument.
In real world use, the differences are negligible, even sometimes favorable to Exynos version, such as in the case of GSMArena tests where E8990 had significantly better standby efficiency and overall better result than the SD835.
cha0z_ - Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - link
I actually also got 10-12h SOT and 36h on battery constantly. Without any power saving, 1400p, autobrightness, mixed wifi + some 4g - youtube, facebook, messenger, viber, samsung internet browser, some calls, listening to poweramp hifi for 1-2h and light gaming (for example epsxe running diablo 1). With heavy gaming (fortnite on ultra, vainglory on high) in long sessions around 3.5-5h I always get around 7h+ SOT.The phone is really cold, even when heavy gaming is involved + the performance is good/smooth. I wonder if sd note 9 high sustain scores in GPU are because of insane temperatures and if that's the case - this is a mistake that will fry your phone if you game a lot... as games like fortnite on ultra will cause massive overheat when played for long time even if they perform well.
Otherwise there is no logic why the note 9 exynos isn't outperforming even slightly the s9 exynos in sustain while the note 9 sd blows the s9+ sd.
najxina - Tuesday, November 27, 2018 - link
Bought Exynos version few months back but doesnt feel like buying a flagship devicejaju123 - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link
What are you finding wrong with it?cha0z_ - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
The mediocre SOC that underperforms badly compared to the sd845 and is equal and even sometimes SLOWER than the sd835 in real world performance. :)cha0z_ - Tuesday, December 4, 2018 - link
P.S. while we in Europe (and the most of the world) pay actually more for the note 9 than the buyers in USA. Perfect and fair.