Category: Qualcomm

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Opinion: Exynos is bad, but it shouldn’t be killed

After numerous leaks and endless rumors, Samsung’s newest Galaxy S23 series has now been officially unveiled, confirming several of those leaks we stumbled upon in the past couple of months. One of those leaks that particularly caught the eye was Samsung ditching its in-house Exynos SoC, going all-in on Qualcomm’s latest offering, bringing parity to its customers across all the different markets we all craved for so long. Not only that, the Galaxy S23 series will feature a special beefed-up version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, featuring the “For Galaxy” moniker. At first, this might sound spectacular, especially for those in the EU and MENA regions contemplating the idea of upgrading to the newest flagship from Samsung this year. However, I’d like to argue that ditching Exynos altogether might not be the best news to hear in the long run.

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The Pixel 5 might not be a flagship, and that’s a good thing

Despite newer generations of mid-range smartphones proving to suit the needs of more people, some people still find the urge to shell out some extra cash on flagship hardware inexcusable. In the past, there was a gulf between both tiers in terms of some crucial aspects, most notably in terms of performance. Fortunately, this difference started to diminish gradually over the years, with mid-range processors becoming more and more capable every generation, and manufacturers bringing more premium features to its mid-range phones lineup. Curiously, Google and LG seem to have recognized how capable newer mid-range processors have become. And if the latest rumors are to be believed, it looks like Google’s upcoming Pixel 5 will be a “premium mid-tier” smartphone instead of being a fully-fledged flagship. While that might upset the tech enthusiasts or the so-called power users a bit, I think this might have just made the Pixel 5 a more appealing offer to the overwhelming majority of average consumers. 

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[Update: More information] Snapdragon 855 coming with a dedicated NPU and possibly a new name

AI is becoming increasingly popular. It spans from companies like Asus going crazy on the word for marketing to Google integrating it with every single product. With all the use of AI, the most popular SoC maker, Qualcomm, had to equip native support for it on their SoCs. That’s what it’s doing with the upcoming Snapdragon 855.

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In-Depth: Understanding the Cortex A53 on Mobile SoCs

To start off, ARM Holdings is a chip design company, which is owned by Soft Bank Ltd. ARM stands for Advanced RISC (Reduced Instruction Computer) Machine. RISC is something that people in Computer Science domain should definitely be aware of, but for the uninitiated, RISC is a microprocessor that is designed to perform a smaller number of types of computer instructions so that it can operate at a higher speed. Its speed is measured in MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second). Today, we take a look at the Cortex A53.

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