Samsung Galaxy S9 Exynos Variant Has Worse Battery Life Than Snapdragon Variant: Reports

Samsung's Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ were showcased to the world in February this year, with the flagship handsets coming to Indian shores in early March. However, the variant that is sold in the US market is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC while the one sold in India - and most other international markets - comes with Samsung's in-house Exynos 9810 SoC. Recent battery tests have indicated that battery performance on the units with an Exynos SoC is sub-par compared to the performance on the units with a Snapdragon chip.

AnandTech's review of the two smartphones reveals that while the Snapdragon version lasted about 10.48 hours in the web browsing on Wi-Fi battery test, the Exynos variant managed a dismal 6.8 hours on the same test. This performance is surprising considering the fact that Samsung's in-house SoC is expected to perform better due to better software optimisation.

A study by industry analyst firm Strategy Analytics, reported by Yonhap News, states that battery performance with Exynos 9810 SoC is substantially lower than with the Snapdragon 845 SoC. The South Korean outlet reports that battery on the Galaxy S9, according to this test, lasted for 26 hours and 52 minutes giving it the sixth place among seven flagship smartphones in the test.

Comparatively, the LG G6 lasted 32 hours 35 minutes while the Huawei P10 dropped dead after 32 hours and 8 minutes in the battery test. The top spot was captured by the Sony Xperia XZ2 at 36 hours and 1 minute, followed by the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact at 34 hours and 20 minutes.