LG Says Snapdragon 810 Doesn't Overheat In The G Flex 2

After many rumors that the Snapdragon 810 chip overheats, along with a recent report from Bloomberg saying that Samsung is dropping the Snapdragon 810 in the Galaxy S6, LG reacted and said the Snapdragon 810 inside of its G Flex 2 works well:

"I am very much aware of the various concerns in the market about the (Snapdragon) 810, but the chip's performance is quite satisfactory," Woo Ram-chan, LG vice president for mobile product planning, told reporters at a press event for the G Flex 2 smartphone.

LG's Woo further said that the new G Flex 2 device even emits less heat than other similar devices:

"I don't understand why there is a issue over heat," he said.

In a previous article, we discussed that even if there was only a small issue with the Snapdragon 810, the Galaxy S6 launch is too important for Samsung to risk negative reactions from its customers in case something goes wrong. It's also a big opportunity for Samsung to show that it can fully rely on its own Exynos chips, at least at the high end of the market.

Because Qualcomm chose to go with a Cortex A53/Cortex A57 big.LITTLE CPU, just like Samsung's Exynos 7 Octa, there should be a much smaller difference between the performance profiles of the two chips. This makes it easier for Samsung to replace the Snapdragon 810 with its own chip.

Although Samsung may have its own reasons to make the Snapdragon 810 issue bigger than it really is, LG also has its own reasons to downplay the issue. The G Flex 2's shipping is imminent, coming in just a week, and LG has to pitch it to potential customers as a flawless device.

It's also possible we're talking about two different clock speeds of the Snapdragon 810. Two years ago, Samsung launched the Galaxy S4 with a clock speed of 1.9 GHz for its Snapdragon 600 chip, while HTC had the Snapdragon 600 clocked at only 1.7 GHz (a more optimal frequency for the Snapdragon 600).

It's possible Samsung was planning to launch the Galaxy S6 at a clock speed that would have been higher than what's optimal for the Snapdragon 810, and higher than the frequency the G Flex 2 will be using. If this is the case, then both companies could be telling the truth about their experiences with the Snapdragon 810.

In other words, the Snapdragon 810 may work just fine if kept at a more conservative clock speed, although it remains to be seen what that means for the performance competition with the Exynos 7 Octa and other chips.

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