Will Samsung Galaxy Note 7 up the standards Galaxy S7 set when it launches August 2 or will it lurk in the shadows as Galaxy S7 Edge's bigger cousin? The key to success for the phablet could lie in what powers the device. And with less than two weeks to go, Samsung has not revealed if Snapdragon's latest will be doing the job.
Galaxy S7 is powered by Snapdragon 820, path-breaking chipset in many ways. It boasts high-speed download capabilities, faster processing with improved power efficiency over previous chips thanks to the Kyro architecture and support for high-res displays the likes of which have never been seen before. Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are best known devices with these chipsets but would be six months old when Galaxy Note 7 launches next month. If Samsung launches the Note 7 with the same chipset, the phablet runs the risk of ending up being a S7 Edge repeat that could prove a disaster for Samsung's well-thought out branding marketing strategies (skipping Note 6 for Note 7 and launching the phablet early).
Speculation until last month suggested Note 7 would launch with Snapdragon 823 (a chipset about which very little is known). Contrastingly, Forbes and other disappointing reports published earlier this month suggested Samsung would power Note 7 with Snapdragon 820, overturning months of speculation.
While some reports have remained conspicuously mum about the chipset, others affirm Samsung will launch Note 7 with Snapdragon 821 Qualcomm's latest chipset, which we think is likely; Qualcomm announced the launch of the chipset just a day before Samsung announced its Galaxy Note Unpacked event.
"The Snapdragon 821 is engineered to deliver a 10% performance increase over the 820 with the Qualcomm Kryo quad-core CPU, reaching speeds up to 2.4GHz," Qualcomm announced while stating devices with its latest chipset should hit stores in second half of this year.
That said, the mystery persists given that rumored specifications of Samsung Galaxy Note 7, including the CPU speeds and the RAM (6GB rumored) are all within Snapdragon 820's prowess (read Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe). Additionally, leaks on benchmarking sites have all portrayed the Note 7 prototypes with Snapdragon 820 chipset.
Samsung has already explained why it is calling its 2016 phablet Note 7 but more details are unlikely until the launch itself. Meanwhile, for those holding on to their money, we would recommend waiting for the launch. Until then, here is a purported hands-on video of the latest Note.
