Tomorrow, February 9, 2022, Samsung will introduce its highest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S22 series. Samsung on S series smartphones, usually uses 2 kinds of chipsets or processors, Snapdragon or Exynos, and until now, happened to always get Exynos.
Although the latest Exynos chipset is getting better in performance, in several tests, it has been shown that the Snapdragon chipset is indeed superior in several important things, such as photo processing, graphics performance for gaming, power efficiency, etc.
But this time something is out of the ordinary, the official Galaxy S22 series flagship phone for the market, according to very strong rumors, will use the latest rumored best chipset, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
I had time to make a poll on social media, asking Samsung smartphone users, if given the choice of chipset for the latest flagship smartphone, would they choose to be powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or Exynos 2200?
The result of hundreds who took part in the poll, 3:1 voted Snapdragon. This means that now the wishes of Samsung flagship users have come true.
Making a good smartphone is like cooking. The chipset is like various cooking utensils, ingredients, and spices, while vendors like Samsung will be the Chef. The result of the cuisine is as good as anything, is the collaboration of cooking utensils, ingredients, seasonings, and the Chef as the processor.
Samsung's previous flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S21 Ultra, (which uses the Snapdragon 888 chipset), at the end of the year received many awards as the best smartphone of 2021.
So now the continuation of the collaboration between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset makers who jumped away from the technology side with Samsung on the Galaxy S22 will look very interesting. Let's take a look at some of the leaks, before it's officially introduced tomorrow.
Samsung periodically ahead of the launch of the Galaxy S22 makes several teasers, which show the capabilities of this new flagship, the theme is "Ready to Break The Rules" or in its free translation ready to break the rules or limitations. There are at least 3 parts of the Break The Rules theme that have been released in a short video, which we will discuss below.
Break The Rules of Power
The chipset deserves to be called the brain of a smartphone, just as our brain regulates everything in the body, so the actual mention of the processor is no longer suitable, because in the chipset there are many chips with their respective tasks, arithmetic, graphics, camera, modem, etc., so now it is called a SoC. , System on Chip.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC that is the brain of the Galaxy S22 is made with 4nm fabrication, so the size of the chipset is only about 1cm x 1cm, but contains billions of transistors.
The smaller the fabrication, the goal is to make chipsets that are faster, but more energy efficient. This power saving is very important, because today's smartphone use is getting longer every day, don't let it run out of power in the middle of the road because of a power-intensive chipset.
In Break The Rules of Power, Samsung promises fast performance, this fast performance is not just the CPU, but also means graphics, photo processing, AI, etc.
All these speeds are very dependent on the chipset, so for that to be said, to make a good flagship smartphone, it must be supported by a premium flagship chipset.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 comes out at a special time, after 10 years we use Armv8 architecture, now starts the new chipset architecture Armv9.
The chipset with an octa-core or 8-core CPU is divided into 3 clusters, roughly like the speed gear on an automatic car.
1 Cortex-X2 3GHz core, it's like S or Sport gear in a car, for crushing big and heavy applications, multitasking, and boosting CPU performance when needed.
3 core Cortex-710 2.5GHz, it's like D gear on transmission, balanced between performance and power economy.
4 core Cortex-510 1.8GHz, which works like an eco transmission, prioritizing energy efficiency when our smartphone usage activities are not heavy, such as emailing, browsing, watching Youtube, etc.
Smartly, this cluster will not work alone, but mostly in the form of a combination of clusters, for example Cortex-710 with Cortex-510, following the performance load received by the smartphone. Here is Samsung's role to make its regulatory algorithm on the Android 12 OS with OneUI 4.x
What's even more interesting in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset is its graphics capabilities. This Adreno graphics chip is high-performance, and it really depends on the vendor how to use it.
Used until it's stuck ready, but the vendor must have an algorithm on how to regulate the power output, and most importantly regulate the effect of the resulting temperature. Smartphones can stop working or often called overheating, if they are too hot.
For this reason, Samsung in addition to having to create a temperature control algorithm, must also create a cooling system with improved technology so that the Galaxy S22 when used to play heavy games such as PUBG, COD, Genshin Impact, can provide the best rendering.
The mobile game industry is indeed very developed, in its current class, pursuing the quality of desktop gaming. Mobile gaming is even bigger than PC Gaming and Console Gaming put together.
For this reason, avid mobile gamers should choose a flagship smartphone in the S22 class which is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 to be able to enjoy gaming with the best frame rate and rendering, which is an increase compared to last year's flagship chipset whose graphics performance can go up as much as 60% for the Vulkan API in gaming. .
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 also features the Adreno Frame Motion Engine which can produce 2x the frame rate without adding power. The higher the frame rate the game will move smoother and look more alive.
We can now enjoy mobile graphics technology that previously only existed on desktop PCs on mobile, VRS, Variable Rate Shading. This technology allows the graphics chipset to map the image to be displayed and determine the "depth" of the image, for example trees and buildings in the distance will not differ in rendering detail or less detail, it will be selected for rendering not detailed, and graphic power is preferred to render more detailed objects that are closer together, so that the rendering process can be faster and produce higher frame rates, or better image details.
Mobile gaming can no longer be underestimated, games with Unity or the Unreal engine are of high quality not only in gameplay, but also provide the comfort of vivid images, complete with depth, shadows, and even HDR support.
With the power of the Adreno graphics chip which has volumetric features, it can even render fog or smoke effects that look and move like the original.
The Samsung flagship, which is famous for its AMOLED screen technology, which has always been considered the best to date, will spoil car gamers with immersive game images on its latest screen, and it also supports high refresh rates and touch sampling rates.
Break The Rules of Light.
The most repeated teaser with various versions of the unpacked Samsung S22 is about the light on the camera. Camera quality is still the top choice for flagship smartphones. The camera on a smartphone has become an important part for many people to start approaching professional cameras, because the quality is getting better, and smartphones are always carried by users, so they are ready at any time to capture the moment. Today's smartphone cameras have even succeeded in "killing" pocket cameras.
The size of the smartphone camera, which tends to be small, cannot put a large sensor and lens, must be tricked so that the results are close to the results of a professional camera. For this reason, apart from camera hardware, such as camera lenses and sensors, the ISP chipset, Image Signal Processor on the SoC, plays a very important role.
Break The Rules of Light is how Samsung in the Galaxy S22 solves the problem where the smartphone camera is usually weak at night photos, or lowlight conditions. 2-3 years ago smartphone cameras tended to produce dark photos at night, let alone videos. Now many smartphones have improved for photos in low light conditions, with night photography mode.
But the quality of night photos or lowlights is indeed difficult to perfect, because night photos are not only a matter of bright images, but how to deal with noise, make details look good when zoomed in, not turn out like a watercolor image, overcome flare from lights, and most importantly capture night photos that are clearly visible, maybe even clearer than our eyes can see, but do not lose their night atmosphere.
What's even more difficult is taking videos at night, if a photo is once clicked after the image is captured, the smartphone can perform an automatic editing process, while the video itself takes an average of at least 30 image frames in 1 second, so without a reliable ISP, this process will not work. possible to do. That's why the average smartphone camera tends to be darker when recording video in low light conditions. The Galaxy S22 promises to push the boundaries, making great nighttime photos and videos.
Is this possible? Why is this capability not present on previous smartphones? This can not be separated from the ability of the ISP chip on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which has increased.
When we click the camera, the shutter opens and light enters, received by the camera sensor. The task of the ISP chip is to process the data of each sensor pixel that receives light and translate it into the image we see. The ISP also functions for auto focus, auto exposure, and auto white balance.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 on the Galaxy S22, has 3 ISPs that can work simultaneously at the same time, even running 3 different lenses at once.
The limitations of the camera sensor and lens size limitations on smartphones can be overcome by one click taking 2 or 3 pictures from different lenses. Then the data from these multiple lenses is processed into one better image known as computational photography.
This method can produce more detailed photos, farther and clearer zooming, better quality bokeh, brighter photos, to more steady videos, etc.
The three ISPs can process 3.2 Gigapixels per second, or easily in 1 second they can capture 240 photos with a resolution of 12MP each. This ISP capability is not kidding.
With this improvement, Mega Low Light Photos was introduced, where previously one take took 6 pictures, now it is 5x, 30 images with different exposures. When the 30 images are combined into one image with the help of AI, it will produce a bright image even in very low light conditions.
For night video, the ability of the new ISP chip in Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 which is capable of processing 3.2 Gigapixel of data per second, is sufficient to process video data of at least 30 frames per second in real time. Moreover, in collaboration with camera sensors with non-binning technology, it unites 9 small 0.8 micron pixels into one large 2.4 micron pixel, to capture more light in low light conditions.
Today many smartphone users use their cameras to record videos, to post their creations to TikTok, Reels, Youtube, etc. We see a lot of traveling recordings or event reports during night conditions, the video images tend to be dark.
With the new capabilities of the collaboration between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC and Samsung on the Galaxy S22, low-light conditions are now not a limitation of recording video anymore.
Apart from photo and video capabilities in low light, there are many other camera features that can be done with this ISP advancement, tomorrow we will see in more detail at its launch.
Smartphones have now become a central device that many people need to do many things, connect with each other either through chat or social media, search for news, study, play, enjoy entertainment, and work.
Samsung has always thought of making a different flagship device, which has more value, that can be used to accommodate creativity and improve work.
Then issued an additional digital pen called the S-pen. Each generation of this s-pen has more and more features, including progressing closer to the sensation of writing or drawing on paper.
Some people feel that taking notes on meetings, taking short notes such as shopping lists, making small reminder notes, making charts, etc., is quicker to write them down with a pen and paper. Therefore, the S-pen is considered a useful tool for creation.
Those who have tried it and used it, often find it difficult to change devices without an S-pen, that's why there is a group of Samsung users called Noters.
The ability of the S-pen has been greatly developed, the writing made can be recognized, even converted into typed.
When we are used to writing italics towards the diagonal, it can be made flat. Scribbles such as drawing circles or squares, even lines that are not straight, can be turned into perfect circles, squares, and lines.
Teaser Galaxy S22 Ultra Photo: Samsung
Artists who like to draw or create, like to use the s-pen to draw or make doodles, because the S-Pen can mimic drawing tools such as pencils, pens, brushes, and even ink pens to make calligraphy.
Codes such as mathematical and chemical symbols, are easily recorded, including for office workers to put digital signatures, which makes work easier,
How handwriting can be recognized even if it's ugly, and one s-pen can mimic many drawing tools, is the work of AI, or Artificial Intelligence, which we know as artificial intelligence.
The AI on Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is now in its 7th generation, it can process AI performance 4x faster than its predecessor chipset. With this fast AI capability, writing recognition, s-pen latency speed, etc., will work better.
So a premium flagship chipset, will have many capabilities that are very long to describe. This provides an option for vendors to take advantage of it to make the best possible flagship smartphone.
It's interesting to see the collaboration capabilities between Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which is considered the best mobile chipset, and Samsung, which has proven to be able to process and create versatile flagships.
We look forward to tomorrow.