Hot take: Flagship chipsets are no longer necessary

25 October 2020
As we approached the limit of Moore's Law, it became apparent that any further advancement would come at a cost

Sort by:

[deleted post]Why are you comparing Samsung Flagship device to budget Poco X3?
Why not compare it to other flagships which have cooling?

    [deleted post]There is no phone called the Samsung Note FE.
    Just cut it with your lies.

      notsomedude, 27 Oct 2020Oh come on people, Note 20 Ultra whatever and the latest iP... moredo people really do some productive work on their smartphone? so rare.
      people buy expensive device because those have better build quality, take better selfie and show that they can buy expensive devices. productivity on phone is just some BS.
      real productive people work with real workstation or specifically designated devices, not smartphone.

        • g
        • gab
        • C9a
        • 27 Oct 2020

        aReefer, 27 Oct 2020I'm going to come out and undermine my own comment in ... moreexactly my stance. i bought my huawei-p20 at a sale for nearly 1/2 the price, just as huawei was about to release their p30 series, and plan to use it for 4 years with just a battery change. assuming i don't lose it within that time I'd actually be saving more money than if i bought a "good" midranger at about the same time I bought this phone, with the feature set still holding up against newer midrange phones.

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • v3K
          • 27 Oct 2020

          Anonymous, 27 Oct 2020IPhones are exploding left and right. Must be all the chea... more"must be all the cheap quality components"

          Screen supplier: Samsung
          Ram supplier: Samsung
          Camera supplier: Sony
          Glass supplier: Gorilla glass
          WiFi/LTE supplier: Qualcomm

          Oooo self burn! that's rare :)

            • T
            • Tusharma
            • rJs
            • 27 Oct 2020

            When Mediatek is giving you much better Dimensity chipsets at such a lower cost, why should you go for other flagships.

              • L
              • Laus14
              • xhm
              • 27 Oct 2020

              Nice and complete article. I guess I'll buy upper-midrange to switch from the old one

                • n
                • notsomedude
                • Kx9
                • 27 Oct 2020

                Oh come on people, Note 20 Ultra whatever and the latest iPhones costs the same as a low to lower mid-end range laptop while giving LESS productivity.

                What's wrong with that you ask? people keep buying this expensive phones for the sake of what? light gaming? texting? watching videos?

                man, you can't even do actual productivity work there and yet it costs thousands. smh

                  I'm going to come out and undermine my own comment in favor of midrange chipsets, and say that if you take care of your flagship, and if you use it for at least 3 years, then it may be worth getting one.

                  Replacing them every year or so however is a waste of money for value-conscious buyers IMHO.

                  Problem is that some elements are out of our control, such as damage, theft, loss etc.

                  If that happens to you then you may wish you had saved some money and bought a midranger - but nobody knows what the future holds.

                    • A
                    • Ayaan G
                    • YQx
                    • 27 Oct 2020

                    Flagships are really not needed at this point and I think brands like Snapdragon really need to lower their manufacturing cost and not push the 5G aspect.

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • Sc$
                      • 27 Oct 2020

                      [deleted post]that's because s20 fe cheaped out on cooling among other things :) try again.

                        AnonD-546724, 26 Oct 2020It's called inflationInflation has no where near risen by that level! It's called extortion..

                          [deleted post]Old people these days...

                            • i
                            • idk my name
                            • bJb
                            • 27 Oct 2020

                            [deleted post]true.. im using huawei mate 10 for 3 years... even its support HDR+Ultra... i didn't seem smooth like Balance +Ultra.. but using high graphic just make your battery drain fast.. so useless using high graphics

                              • ?
                              • Anonymous
                              • XTk
                              • 27 Oct 2020

                              Kriegsherr, 27 Oct 2020you are right for most part. but doesnt image processing de... moreimage quality depends on many things, including ISP which is part of the chipset, yes. but it's not the whole story
                              for example, mi note 10 have great camera despite using SD730 while poco f1 doesn't really have remarkable camera despite using SD845
                              having good processor really help on the processing speed though (mi note 10 take some seconds to process the photo)
                              lastly, everyone have their preferences and its fine but all this "if it's not the newest chip then it's unusable" mentality is just funny.
                              it's basically dumb number wars just like RAM size, pixel size, and recently charging speed where the company just pump the number and price with almost zero practical use

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • XTk
                                • 27 Oct 2020

                                [deleted post]that's my point. people seems to underestimate mid-range too much
                                smooth extreme didn't meed much power at all. i remember before genshin people used to say "the chipset is fast it can run PUBG without framedrop" like, bruh, even G90T can do that much. you're basically bought a racing car and impressed it can run at 60 mph
                                yeah, there's genshin now but strictly speaking, the only reason you "need" flagship chipaet is to run it at highest 60 fps

                                  Anonymous, 27 Oct 2020well, i think this article is not about flagship but flagsh... moreyou are right for most part. but doesnt image processing depend a lot on SOC? so if you dont wanna save that 0.035 sec while navigating UI, still fine but the image would not be the same despite using same camera hardware. maybe that is one reason to buy a phone with flagship processor.
                                  in fact I would like to see cut corners in other areas. like plastic back instead of glass, a little older gorilla glass, an OLED display with slightly lower peak brightness, a thicker device. personally I would rather see a top SOC sacrificed later than earlier.

                                    • ?
                                    • Anonymous
                                    • XTk
                                    • 27 Oct 2020

                                    Kriegsherr, 27 Oct 2020from your choice of device as you mentioned, it looks like ... morewell, i think this article is not about flagship but flagship killer (the last paragraph literally said if you want to spend more then it's always nice to have a choice).
                                    if you don't care about the price then sure, it's always better to have higher number (16 GB RAM, 108 MP camera, 1 TB storage, including highest antutu score) but when you need to cut some corner usually processors is no longer a bottleneck

                                      • J
                                      • JDK
                                      • ybx
                                      • 27 Oct 2020

                                      r33fd, 25 Oct 2020This post is stupid and I'm going to tell you why. ... moreDude, there is something called prioritization. Not every self-oriented pursuit is worth it in humans minds.

                                      It's up to us humans to decide whether we want to invest in something we like or not.

                                      It's this author's opinion that better flagship chipsets are no longer worth the effort to make it a reality.

                                      Making proccesors faster isn't as important as all-new technology such as better screens, cameras, etc. In the author's opinion.

                                      So if we want to achieve the latest and greatest, why isn't everybody working on the tallest chair in the world? Yeah, it's not worth the time and effort.

                                        Oppaii, 26 Oct 2020Can you please help me with my school essay? >.ha ha...maybe you wont get top marks if you let him help you. he will just write some BS.

                                          2 of 13