Samsung has now unveiled the upcoming S24 series of phones, with the S24, Plus, and Ultra models becoming the flagship smartphones for the company this year. However, there's one small issue for non-United States customers, and that's the fact that the S24 and the S24+ are using Exynos once again.
It's not only the US that gets the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip in the lesser two models either, with South Korea and China also receiving the Snapdragon-powered S24 and S24+. Those of us in the rest of the world will be getting Samsung's in-house Exynos.
For those unaware, Exynos has a history of performance and heating issues that make Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips the superior choice. For most users, this probably won't be a huge deal. But for those of you who want the best performing phone on the market, having the Exynos chip could be a deterrent.
Fortunately, the S24 Ultra doesn't meet a similar fate, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 available within the Ultra globally, pushing it further as the best S24 phone available when it releases. That being said, Exynos 2400, the latest chip from Samsung, needs to be tested and compared to the Snapdragon S24s, so it could potentially perform similarly in real-life tests.
If the Exynos does end up performing worse than the Snapdragon S24 phones, it would certainly make rival phones like the ASUS ROG Phone 8, which offers Qualcomm's chip in all three models, more appealing. The ROG Phone 8 also has AI features, albeit focused on enhancing the best Android games as opposed to daily use, but ASUS is also targeting the general smartphone market instead of purely gamers this time around.
The news about Exynos returning will surely be disappointing to those who upgrade their phones regularly. The Galaxy S23 series exclusively used Snapdragon, regardless of which model you picked up, and Samsung has ditched this already in favour of their own chip. While the Samsung Unpacked 2024 put a spotlight on Galaxy AI, which sounds exciting in its own right, the return of Exynos will certainly make some fans cautious.