The Samsung Galaxy S10+ Snapdragon & Exynos Review: Almost Perfect, Yet So Flawed
by Andrei Frumusanu on March 29, 2019 9:00 AM ESTBattery Life: Impressive
Battery performance of the Galaxy S10+ has been touted to be as class-leading. The introduction of a larger battery, more efficient screen as well as a new generation of SoCs are sure to bring improvements over last year’s Galaxy S9. One aspect that readers will have waited for impatiently is our testing of the new Exynos 9820 variant against the Snapdragon 855, which has also been one topic I’ve been extremely interested to see.
We run Samsung's Galaxy devices at the full potential they can deliver, something we've done for several generations now. This means that the screen resolution is set to the native 1440p of the display panels, and the new battery settings on the S10 were also set to "Performance" mode.
Without further ado, let’s get do the results:
In our web browsing test, both Galaxy S10+s are showcasing outstanding longevity at 13.08h for the Exynos and 12.75h for the Snapdragon variant. Least to say, I was extremely surprised to see this result even though we measured the Exynos 9820 CPU to be quite less efficient than the Snapdragon 855 in peak performance efficiency. I would have not expected the Exynos to match the Snapdragon, much less slightly beat it.
Before going into more details, let’s see the PCMark battery test results:
Here, in absolute terms, the Galaxy S10+ aren’t quite as impressive as on the web test and further lag behind the excellent results of the Kirin 980 devices. Nevertheless, these are some impressive figures and again it’s very good to see that both units are almost evenly matched, this time the Snapdragon unit lasting slightly longer than the Exynos.
To explain these results, we have to keep one thing in mind: the Exynos unit will have posted worse performance than the Snapdragon, so it will have spent more time at the lower more efficient frequency states.
One thing that I also noticed, is that in very low idle loads where there’s just some light activity on the A55 cores, the Exynos 9820 variant actually uses less power than the Snapdragon unit. The figures we’re talking about here are 20-30mW, but could possibly grow to bigger values at slightly more moderate loads. It’s possible that Qualcomm has more static leakage to deal with on the 7nm process than Samsung on 8nm, one thing that I’ve come to hear about the TSMC 7nm node.
Furthermore, one of the biggest improvements for the Galaxy S10 over past devices isn’t actually the SoC nor the actual bigger battery. It’s actually the display as well as the base power consumption of the phone. In Airplane mode, the base power has gone down by almost 100mW compared to the Galaxy S9+ which is a fantastic development and is especially something that will result in higher low-brightness battery life.
Currently in my time with both S10+ units, I can say they’ve been among the longest lasting Android devices I’ve tested.
Exynos vs Snapdragon in identical usage patterns & Prolonged idle periods
One issue I can confirm with the Exynos unit is that after a voice call in any app, the phone isn’t correctly entering its lower power state, and will suffer from increased idle battery drain until a reboot. This is something that hopefully Samsung addresses in a firmware update as it doesn’t look to be a hardware related issue. When not affected by this bug, both phones idle very similar to each other and slightly better than the S9+ I use as my daily device.
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TechieSandy - Tuesday, April 2, 2019 - link
The difference in the Dynamic Range between the Snapdragon and the Exynos variant may have less to do with processing than the triggering by the camera. In one of the pics the Exynos proxessor has better details in the shadows and more dynamic range.In this photo:
https://images.anandtech.com/galleries/6981/S10PS_...
It may be something triggering the HDR algorithm. It may have to do with it.
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, April 5, 2019 - link
That image you linked is the Snapdragon - check the difference in detail in the marble for example.urbanman2004 - Tuesday, April 2, 2019 - link
No wonder people are holding onto their phones at the most for 4 years as indicated by this article after seeing those prices. After selling my Galaxy S7, never again will I find myself being held captive from the ever tightening stranglehold made by SamsungKishoreshack - Tuesday, April 2, 2019 - link
Excellent review by Andreithis is even better than what Brian Klug used to do
your analysis is good & conclusion are spot on
I think you missed to test the GPS on both phones
which would make it a complete review
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, April 5, 2019 - link
GPS part taken note of, I'll see what can be done in the future.nyonya - Wednesday, April 3, 2019 - link
Will the test results be added to Bench soon? Also, any guesses as to the battery life of the (Snapdragon) S10e? There's finally a small flagship phone and I'll probably upgrade to it. And agreed on the power button location, it's stupidly high on all the S10 variants.ElFenix - Wednesday, April 3, 2019 - link
45° FoV corresponds with a 52 mm lens on a 35 mm camera, which most people would consider 'normal' rather than 'telephoto.' 77° FoV corresponds with a 27 mm lens on a 35 mm camera, which most people would consider 'wide angle.' 123° FoV corresponds with a 12 mm lens on a 35 mm camera, which most people would consider 'super wide angle.'so this phone doens't have a telephoto camera in the traditional sense. only normal, wide, and super-wide.
s.yu - Friday, April 5, 2019 - link
Indeed it is and is what many have been complaining about, the terminology issue of phone cameras.US3R13 - Sunday, April 7, 2019 - link
I have a question in regard to the camera output of the Exynos model.Does the different we saw in the review only occur in the JPG or even if we shoot raw the difference still exists?
Thanks
zoamster - Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - link
This review was a real real treat.I have been waiting for this review ever since the devices launched and have checked the website more than 20 times. No review can be better than this and I hope the authors keep doing the excellent work.
I wish samsung starts selling snapdragon Soc phones in India(which i know they won't) and stop making those shitty ass exynos processors and start including hifi dac as lg does. Maybe improve the camera software department as pixel's or apple's.
It seriously feels bad that you spend a fortune to buy trash.
One question- Will the unlocked SD variant work fine in India?
PS- Thank you for make this excellent review and I hope to see more in future.