Many speculations were smashed during the recently concluded Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 held in Barcelona, Spain recently. Probably one of the biggest speculations and sources of many of the talks is a little chip by Qualcomm called the Snapdragon 835.
People were expecting major phone manufacturers will be using the new SoC in their flagship phones, but apparently were forced to use the older chipsets instead. The reason behind this is the purported "hoarding" of the Snapdragon 835 by Samsung, who collaborated with Qualcomm to manufacture the said chips.
Samsung had first dibs
Apparently, many opined that Samsung had first dibs of the chips speculated for use in its upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 flagship. Reports suggested that the Snapdragon 835 would not be available in large quantities until after the Galaxy S8 is launched, reported Forbes.
According to the report, HTC was hit by this and almost all phones intending to use the Snapdragon 835. LG G6 opted to equip its phones with the Snapdragon 821 instead of the 835 that everyone was expecting. As it turned out, LG did not stress about it too much since using the Snapdragon 835 would require some "ramp up" time, whereas employing the 821, which has been around long enough, ensures stable and optimized software.
Samsung Exynos 9 Series 8895
Now that Samsung officially unveiled the Exynos 9 Series 8895, it is now up for another speculation if the Korean tech giant will use these, instead of the Snapdragon 835 it helped manufacture. In 2015, Samsung used its own Exynos chip in the Galaxy S6, due to overheating issues Qualcomm encountered with its Snapdragon 810, according to c|net.
After the debacle caused by an incendiary Galaxy Note 7 due to battery issues, Samsung would definitely not want to traverse that road again with an untested chip being the cause of combustion this time. It is also likely that if Samsung uses the Snapdragon 835, it might not exploit the full capacity and capability of the chip to prevent it from overheating, as in the case of the Note 7 with its faulty battery.
Samsung purported hoarding quashed
All speculations aside, the purported Samsung "hoarding" of the Snapdragon 835 has already been quashed. As it turned out during MWC 2017, Sony confirmed that its Xperia XZ Premium is the first smartphone to feature the snapdragon 835, as reaffirmed by Qualcomm. However, the Sony Xperia XZ Premium will actually be launched later in June 2017.
Qualcomm's Keith Kressin, senior vice president of product management stated that there is nothing exclusive about a specific OEM. Qualcomm also made it clear that when an OEM wants to use its product, the order goes directly to Qualcomm, not Samsung.
