Exynos 2100 vs Snapdragon 888: Which is the better one?

                                                                                                       Credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images

The rivalry between the Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888 chipset in the S21 series is full of confusion, some reviewers found that the Snapdragon model is the faster one and can sustain its performance overtime and others are getting the exact opposite results. After hours of research and fact checking, the results found are interesting.

 

Samsung's inhouse Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888 are neck and neck in terms of peak performance. But some phones with the Exynos 2100 perform weaker than the 888 in sustained performance benchmarks. To add to the confusion, other 2100 models perform better than the Snapdragon in the exact test.

Battery endurance is very close on both models and is hard to declare a winner. Both can last you a day based on your usage. One area where the 888 shines is in terms of temperature. The 888 chip runs cooler than the 2100 almost all the time, but Samsung has done a good job insulating the heat from the components inside from the back of the phone. So the backside will not be as hot, regardless of the chip inside.

In gaming, some games run better on the 888 like PUBG, but this will be fixed with a software update on the Exynos models. Camera quality is same on both, but in low light video and photos without night mode in the dark, the Snapdragon produces better results. But Samsung always improves their camera performance over the months with software updates, so camera quality is nothing to compare about. 

So the conclusion to draw from these tests is that, this year there is very low to no disparity between the phones based on the chipsets. Unlike last year's Exynos 990 which overheats and has much lower battery life than the snapdragon 865, the 888 and Exynos 2100 are very similar in terms of performance and battery life.

One thing to note is that the Snapdragon 888 powered phones perform similarly across tests conducted by different reviewers, but some Exynos 2100 powered phones outperform other Exynos 2100 phones with at-least a 10% margin. This could be some optimization issues as the Exynos 2100 is a new chip and has completely different CPU architectures than previous Exynos chips. Samsung can fix these issues with future software updates. 

So, good news for consumers in the Exynos regions, you can now buy a Samsung flagship without compromising in performance and battery life.