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Talk about the Samsung Galaxy S6 at AndroidForums.com!
The unsavory rumors for the Samsung Galaxy S6 just keep rolling in. The latest, a report from Bloomberg, tells us that we shouldn’t expect Samsung to go with the super-hyped Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset, which is currently at the very top of the chipset maker’s totem pole.
Why not, you ask? Well, apparently there are concerns about the chipset overheating during unit testing. Unfortunately the report didn’t state whether Samsung believed the overheating to be due to the design of the phone or a fault in the chipset itself. Either way, that’s a problem they absolutely don’t want to deal with once the phone makes its way out of retail.
Should Samsung ultimately decide to ditch Qualcomm’s wares, they’ll likely look to their own line of Exynos chipsets for processing power. Their chips aren’t bad — in fact, they’re top notch — but Samsung would likely prefer to use Qualcomm’s silicon due to the efficiency of their LTE chips. We also imagine they save quite a bit of money when outsourcing for chipsets instead of ramping up production on their own line.
To maker matters worse, Korean press is reporting that Samsung also won’t be able to slap an IP67 certification on the device, which would certify it to be dust proof and water resistant. It’s sure to be a disappointment after seeing the feature present in the Samsung Galaxy S5.
All of this joins an already sizable list of unfortunate changes Samsung is rumored to be making to their tried and true design. A report earlier in the week suggested Samsung would be looking to do away with a user-replaceable battery thanks to the inclusion of glass on the device’s rear.
We all asked for a better looking Samsung Galaxy S lineup, but it seems far more functionality has to be sacrificed for the sake of beauty. We’ll have to see how all of this ultimately affects Samsung’s sales performance in the year to come, especially considering their previous year wasn’t much to be proud of.
Pass… I have not had good results with Samsung Chip-sets.
I was thinking king the s6 might pull me back to try a Samsung but not if this is true. Especially the waterproofing…
Glass back? I thought everyone learned their lesson from the N4.
i guess it depends on the type of glass, i hear the xperia line is pretty durable
I’ve yet to crack my XPeria Z3’s back. On the other hand, the glass is relatively soft and scratches easily.
This is a disaster for samsung.
To power users, but honestly reviewers eat this stuff up. Look at how well received the iPhone, HTC one series, and nexus phones are received. I’m currently using the nexus 6 as my daily driver but I can admit how great the hardware flexibility of Samsung has been, hope they don’t lose that with the s6.
Did you disable security on the N6 to get better than N5 levels of performance?
The first thing I did was disable forced encryption. Also added tap to wale, more like 8 taps to wake. But with adaptive display on with tap to wake it works well enough. It sucks that even with disabled encryption it’s kind of stuttery.
Ya, I think AOT compiling and ART will still take years to get right. Android’s history of development relies on google rushing it out the door as soon as possible to compete with iOS, but they made a big mistake in how they prioritized the CPU events, i.e. in iOS, a touch event always takes precedent, but with android, a touch event gets in line like every other calculation, so it will always be more ‘stuttery’ than iOS (they can’t simple change the core of the OS without breaking compatibility with the apps developed already). That’s why android OEMs pack way more computational power into their phones to try to approach the buttery-smoothness of the iOS interface, the issue now is that with more demanding applications being made on android to compete with the app selection on iOS, these android CPUs are overheating (see: snapdragon 810, the latest victim in the race to compete at the high end with apple).
It’s frustrating really was considering the 6 plus, but I just love Android too much. The thing that’s annoying its that my nexus 5 with KitKat was just as smooth as the 5s. My nexus 6 isn’t as smooth as the 6 or 6 plus. Just a little microsecond behind on each action. A bit disheartening for the more premium price. My oneplus one even feels a touch smoother in some areas. I think a lot of the blame can be put on the stupid spec stunt known as QHD. I have several 1080p phones and just can’t tell a difference in sharpness. Android OEM’s are constantly trying to outspec Apple but this time it came at the cost of performance. Unless more Android flagships start coming with 1080p displays I might have to start looking at the potential 6s plus.
Non removable battery, no waterproofing, glass back, and an Exynos? Yup, Samsung, you must lost a sale from me.
I’m not too worried about the battery being sealed in there….but a glass back, taking away waterproof and now switching to Exynos chips just helped me with my decision on wanted phones. Flex 2 is back at the top!
No removable battery = no sale. Same with lack of MicroSD
I am often far away from plug-in power longer than a battery charge will last, a battery never lasts me a full day, and I don’t want to be tethered while I wait to recharge from a battery pack.
I know a lot of people that are in that boat. Ever look into the cases with a battery built in?? I am not a heavy user and one of the awesome things about my Nexus 6 is the turbo charger it comes with….I just turn the phone off, charge that bad boy for about 20 minutes and BAAM, 55-60% of battery life!
I have, but it severely. limits my case options and makes the phone overly-fat. I want a thin phone. I don’t mind swapping in a spare battery some point in the day. Only takes a few seconds.
I got nothing on that…they do add bulk. Well, I think you are going to be out of luck with this years line up’s on sealed batteries. = seems they are all going this route.
Yep, agreed. It seems anymore that thin = sealed batteries and I admit, I like thin and to get thin, the trade is that after 1.5 years or so I will have to crack it open and change the battery (maybe 15-20 minutes of work). No big deal for me for getting a thin phone as I like a thin form factor so I can live with it. Not ideal, but it seems choices may be limited unless you want a bulkier design.
I cant imagine that being easy while u are on the go….but I did just watch a video on how to do it. It doesnt seem so hard.
Oh, I never did this on the go. I would do it at home when I had time. A battery can pretty easily last 1-1.5 years or even more before you really notice it going down hill. So, to spend 15 minutes one night and cracking the phone open with the requisite tools and putting in a fresh battery – no big deal. On the go, no way though. But really, for me, at about that time, I am looking at new phones anyway.
Agree on MicroSD, no MicroSD no sale. But, the battery I can let slide as I have opened so many phones now and have the tools, I can get to it if needed as opening them all works on the same principals and I found whereas I use to buy like 3 batteries, on my last Galaxy I didn’t and didn’t replace it for over a year – point being, battery access is not a valuable to me as I once thought. I don’t like not having easy and fast access, but I will still buy if sealed.
If it was only replacing the battery later in life once it wore out in 2 years I’d be fine with it too. But when I can’t get through a full day without draining the battery, it’s another issue.
Never had that issue on newer phones. Older ones I did, but the way I work and live, I can charge on and off in a day IF needed.
I just put in a 3900 battery to replace my stock 2100 after 2 years use of the stock battery and now, I am getting 2 days use easy.
A game of Civilization Rev 2 runs down battery in two hours. So, unplayable without a removable battery.
For all you who don’t like exynos cups, you need to look at the actually battery life of those phones. Exynos had better battery efficiency than Qualcomm.
Thats great….I know a lot of phones with 801 and 805 chips that have great battery life too that are the same speed as the Exynos chips. The reason they were not wanting them to begin with is the crutch they were facing with 4k rendering and how choppy it can be. They have either figured this out all of the sudden or are sticking to their guns on trying to figure it out before launch. Or, they can just ditch 4k recording or viewing on their phones all together in order for their chips to do well.
“Samsung believed the overheating to be due to the design of the phone or a fault in the chipset itself”
I have read about this for weeks now in several places and it seems pretty clear this is a known issue in the chip and has nothing to do with Sammy. Other manufacturers are also balking at using this chip because of this heating issue. Phones that overheat, not good at all. So, this one is not on Sammy.
ps – I am not saying it is not possible that Sammy’s final design could not be making it worse (not enough air flow) or their software tweaks (running CPU to much), but this is and was a known issue about the chip.
I agree….but with the other things they are taking away, its just enough notch in my book on why I’m not going to be looking into one
I am still looking at it for sure. The final phone is not known yet in most all respects. But I admit, some of what is creeping up the last week for rumors is not so nice for me. I think the A line phones are slick. But, it appears they intend to do a more Sony Z line approach with glass front/back which looks great, but does not appear to be so robust in reality of a phone life. I think the A line would have been better for top tier phone, but they used that design by using it already so no way they can use it on the S line.
Not removable battery is not critical to me, BUT I hate being hamstrung in ways like this.
The chip, like I said, hard to pin on them, but an 810 would be nice.
No IP67 is not so good for me given I live an active beach lifestyle and water and dust and such are a daily part of my life. This is why I liked the Z3 concept so much.
In the end, M9 or S6 will be it for me as I am long overdue for a new phone and jonesing to make a move. We will know more in less than a month.
yeah I would love to try out the Sony line….what Id ont get is why Moto did not tout the Nexus 6 to be pretty awesome in the fight against water. U should youtube a video of them dropping on in water! craziness. But I am with you, you cant fault Samsung on that part. I get it. But other chips have had overheating issues that were corrected in time, its why they do a lot of testing and correspondence with the manufacturers before they start mass building.
In the same reports I read on the chip, it was said that Qualcomm thinks they can correct the heat issue “in time” with software. But still, not so cool (no pun intended) to know right out of the box your phone could overheat as that just jacks up your phone.
Here’s the only source I could find – everything else seems to be the rumor mill repeating versions of this and in some cases adding to it – http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/7635/unexpected-hurdle-problems-qualcomm-snapdragon-set-alarm-bells-ringing-samsung-lg
Besides the other issues stated, this will also decimate the selection of alternate ROMs available. No one wants to develop around the issues with the Exynos processors.
How did they manage to seal the battery in and lose water resistance at the same time?
good question
Don’t want to go through the steps of sealing the ports with little doors? Don’t want to add a coating film to the phone for some reason we don’t know? Couldn’t source speakers that would fit their form factor and keep out water? A design flaw – like the Z3 lanyard loop – let water and pressure changes in? The sealing processes and steps are causing more overheating of a chip that is already known to overheat and so they want to bail IF they use the 810? A sealed battery does not mean an airtight, watertight, dust tight seal per se.
Several possible reasons.
The Note 5. That’s my bellwether. That’ll tell me for sure if I’ll remain a Samsung customer.
I’m hoping all this rumor talk is a joke, b/c frankly it sounds like one. Surely Samsung can’t be this blind to consumers’ wants/needs. If they can’t keep their feature phones full of features, I foresee their future in phones fading towards a failing demise. (I wanted to use a lot of F phonetics b/c in my head I’m yelling ‘F*ck’)
Meh… I’ve changed a battery in iOS devices before. Its not difficult at all. It’s so simple if you take the time that I don’t even consider it an issue. People’s concern has been replacing the phone after the battery dies. Its more of an issue with devices like the M8 and their unibody design. It’ll be a bit more… trouble. =.[
Its upsetting to see the water resistance go, but I’ve yet to see something that’s lovely to the eyes and also waterproof. Though some people don’t care about design.
As far as the chip set goes, I’m not too fond. I’ve heard of a lot of compatibility issues with the Exynos processors. Mainly in the development group. So rooters may not be too fond. I haven’t used a phone with that processor since the S2 for Sprint, so I’m not too sure if things have gotten easier.
All in all, I always look forward to the new phones.
I never drop my phone in the toilet so water proofing isn’t really a big deal for me.
The amount of spelling and grammar mistakes in that article. Proof read guys!
It is confirmed by Samsung, no to mention M9 and Flex 2 benchmarks that there is serious thermal throttling of the 810.
No replaceable battery? How long will that rumored 10 minute charge to 4 hours use time last? Who wants a phone made of glass anyway, if you want that you would have bought an iPhone. Samsung seems to be losing its core differentiation. If battery can’t be swapped I might as well just get an iPhone.