Samsung Galaxy S21 leak just revealed massive upgrade to fight iPhone 12

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Samsung Galaxy S21 will get a massive performance boost — but not in the U.S.

(Image credit: Credit: Miror pro/YouTube)

A new Samsung Galaxy S21 leak claims it won't see many upgrades aside from its chip. But from the looks of this new benchmark, it'll be quite an improvement.

The new details come from a series of tweets by respected Twitter leaker Ice Universe, who frequently is on the money with Samsung leaks.

The Exynos 2100 chip scores 693,600 points on the AnTuTu benchmarking app based on IU's screenshot, while the Snapdragon 875, Qualcomm's rival chip, scores 648,871 points. This is notable because it's the first time an Exynos chip has apparently been more powerful than the equivalent Snapdragon chip.

Samsung sells its flagship phones in the U.S. with Snapdragon chips, but in the U.K. and the rest of the world it uses its own Exynos chips instead. Usually that means American Samsung users are getting a better deal when it comes to smartphone power, but perhaps things will be reversed this year.

Basically all premium Android phones aside from those made by Samsung and Huawei use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8-series chipsets, this year's being the Snapdragon 865. That means that most of Samsung's rivals have a little more performance potential. 

Interestingly, the Galaxy S21 won't be the first phone with the Exynos 2100 chip. That honor, IU said, will go to a Vivo phone. This is also unprecedented, as Samsung hasn't sold its chipsets to other companies before. While Vivo isn't that prominent a smartphone maker, particularly in the U.S. and U.K., it could be a sign of Samsung's growing influence on the wider phone market.

Unfortunately, while it's great news that Samsung's chipsets are getting a big processing boost, that might be the only real change we see between it and this year's Galaxy S20 series.

IU's tweet claims that there won't be an improvement to the charging tech to 65W, as Samsung will want to continue supporting its current 45W standard. There have been rumors of an under-display selfie camera, but that has had cold water poured on it recently. We've heard similarly disappointing news about the phone's battery options, which seem to be identical in size to the S20 range.

The camera could see an improvement though. Samsung, not content with its already titanic 108MP sensor, is working on a 180MP camera. It might be this camera that we see as the new main camera on the back of the Galaxy S21 Ultra. But otherwise it looks like we'll need to look to the Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy Z Fold 2's successors for the true cutting edge tech from Samsung.

The new Galaxy S series appears every year around February, so that's when we can expect to see the S21 range debut. We're not entirely sure what number Samsung will use, given that it skipped from the Galaxy S10 to the Galaxy S20. S21 seems the most likely bet right now, but we've also heard this phone referred to as the Galaxy S30. 

Richard Priday
Richard Priday
Assistant Phones Editor

Richard is based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, tablets, gaming, and whatever else people need advice on. Following on from his MA in Magazine Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he's also written for WIRED U.K., The Register and Creative Bloq. When not at work, he's likely thinking about how to brew the perfect cup of specialty coffee.