Updated (January 13): We’ve updated this story to reflect news out of Samsung saying the Exynos 2200 will be launching alongside the Galaxy S22, seemingly overriding the original rumor.
The Samsung Galaxy S22’s chipset was expected to be announced on January 11, but instead, all we got was silence. However Samsung says that this new chipset will be coming after all, just a little later than planned.
January 11 was meant to be the day we saw the announcement of the Exynos 2200, Samsung’s new flagship mobile chipset. However, that date came and went without any news, and the original tweet announcing the event has been deleted (via XDA Developers).
After some uncertainty, a Samsung spokesperson confirmed to Business Korea (via Digital Trends) that the new Exynos chip is still coming, but will be announced alongside a new phone, most likely referring to the incoming Galaxy S22.
“We are planning to unveil the new application processor at the time of launching a new Samsung smartphone,” the statement reads. The spokesperson added, “there are no problems with the AP’s production and performance,” putting a rumor that had been circulating about the reason for the new chip’s delay to bed.
It had been originally believed, due to a tweet from leaker Dohyun Kim (via SamMobile) that the no-show of the Exynos 2200 was because Samsung had decided to drop the chip for the Galaxy S22 series, instead going with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (expected to be found in the U.S. models) worldwide.
Normally users in the U.K. and other countries would be jealous of the superior performance that Snapdragon Galaxy S-series phones normally get over their Exynos counterparts. However, this year there are some reasons why the Exynos versions could in fact be superior.
Not only have leaked graphics benchmarks showed the Exynos 2200 somehow outperforming the mighty Apple A15 Bionic chip from the iPhone 13 series, but it was also rumored to have AMD Radeon RDNA 2 graphics; that’s the same GPU architecture used in the PS5 and Xbox Series X. This isn’t something we’ve ever seen in a phone, so having Samsung introduce it would have been a welcome move; particularly for users looking for the best gaming phones.
Gaming is something Samsung’s spokesperson also addresses in their statement. “The new GPU is expected to resolve the problems of the Exynos 2100,” they said. “We intend to sharpen our competitiveness by loading GPUs for games into mobile devices.”
Unfortunately, there’s been another recent leak that spells bad news for the Galaxy S22, as one leaker says that all three Galaxy S22 models are getting a price hike of $100 each.
The good news is that there is plenty of other things to entice users to the S22 series, according to the rumors. The top Galaxy S22 Ultra model is seeing the most rumored additions, including an integrated S Pen and enhanced 108MP photography with a new Super Clear Lens. The base S22 and S22 Plus should still see some upgrades though, such as more compact designs and new 50MP main cameras.
It’s less than a month until the S22’s rumored launch date of February 8. So it’s not long to wait until we can try out this phone for ourselves. In the meantime, bookmark our Samsung Galaxy S22 hub for all the latest news and leaks.