What you need to know
- Business Korea claims that Samsung will use a MediaTek chip for the international Samsung Galaxy S22 FE and S23.
- The North American version will still use Snapdragon.
- The Galaxy S22 FE will allegedly arrive in the second half of 2022.
- Samsung is still developing high-end Exynos chips for Galaxy phones, but it's unclear which phones.
Samsung reportedly plans to use MediaTek Dimensity chips for the international Samsung Galaxy S22 FE later this year and the Galaxy S23 in 2023. Business Korea broke the news, which will have huge implications for both MediaTek and Samsung Electronics.
Up until now, Samsung used Exynos chips for Europe and most Asian countries, while relying on Snapdragon for North American and South Korean flagships like the Galaxy S22.
Samsung will continue to use Exynos in its mid-range and budget phones, like the excellent Galaxy A53 5G. But if this report is true, Samsung will rely entirely on third-party silicon for its most powerful phones, at least for the next year.
The American S22 FE will likely use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (or the upcoming Gen 2 model), while the international model will either use the powerful Dimensity 9000 or whatever new chip MediaTek has in the cards.
The Galaxy S21 FE was delayed from fall 2021 to January 2022, allegedly due to the global chip shortage. It's possible that relying on MediaTek instead of its own factories will ensure Samsung can release its successor on time. Business Korea claimed in its report the S22 FE will arrive in the second half of 2022, suggesting the series will get back on track.
The Exynos 2200 in the international S22 series brought some unique gaming enhancements like ray tracing and variable rate shading, along with a new dual-core NPU for improved mobile imaging and AI response time. But when sites like XDA Developers tested the Snapdragon and Exynos S22 Ultras side-by-side, the Exynos model fell well short in performance — even taking into account the infamous S22 throttling taking place on the Snapdragon variant.
So perhaps it's for the best that Samsung relegate Exynos to its cheaper phones, at least for now. We've also seen reports that the company is developing a "unique" Galaxy chipset, similar to Google Tensor. So it's clear the company hasn't given up on the dream of putting Exynos chips in all Galaxy phones, for which some Android Central editors have argued.
