Phone makers are slowly relearning how to develop flip phones. One of the latest models is Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 8. Not to be confused with the old-school flip phones that are making a comeback, the Flip 8 is a smartphone with a foldable screen. Unfortunately, Samsung has a habit of sourcing components from various sources, which would hurt the Samsung Z Flip 8 in the European market as it has different specifications depending on where it is sold.
In the US and Canada (and possibly China), the Flip 8 uses a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip; but Flip 8s sold in Europe, India, and South America are powered by Samsung’s own (and significantly weaker) Exynos 2600 chip. European customers who have been eagerly awaiting a new, more powerful foldable smartphone won’t need to look elsewhere from a competing company, but they will have to spend some extra money. The Galaxy Z Flip 8 was released alongside two other foldable phones: the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Pro.
The Flip 8 is the smallest of the bunch and sports the weakest battery and lowest resolution screen, but in the US they all share the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. Samsung opted not to give the Fold 8 and Fold 8 Pro a different processor in Europe. So even though they won’t be using the Exynos 2600, European customers who want to avoid this chip will have to spend an extra $700 or more for an already expensive phone. A price that they would be willing to pay, according to Samsung’s pre-order figures.
The average user might not notice the difference
The Exynos 2600 has nothing on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, but there’s a difference between a comparatively inferior component and a low-quality component. The performance gap between an Exynos 2600 and a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 only really comes into play when you start doing power-intensive tasks like gaming. The Snapdragon is obviously going to deliver higher quality graphics without sacrificing frame rates, and it won’t heat up as much while gaming.
If you only use the phone for calls, photography, etc., you won’t notice much difference in performance between the chips. That being said, the European Galaxy Z Flip 8 might fall behind the US version in another metric: battery life. People who tested both chips found that phones powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 last significantly longer than equivalent devices using an Exynos 2600.
And that’s only for phones where the processor is the only difference. To add salt to that wound, the entire Galaxy Z Fold 8 family of European phones, not just the Flip 8, come with batteries designed for fewer recharge cycles than their US equivalents. This major downgrade for the European Galaxy Z Fold 8 phones virtually guarantees that the European Flip 8 won’t last as long as the US model, both per charge and over its entire lifespan.
