Snapdragon 855 Galaxy Note 10 could be exclusive to Verizon (Update: Nope)

Update, August 2, 2019 (11:12 AM ET): The rumor suggested in the article below — sourced from usually-reliable leaker Evan Blass — is very likely to be untrue, according to Blass himself.

In a follow-up tweet, Blass concedes that he feels “really stupid” for pushing out the original incorrect info. He then says that, according to “two people with firsthand knowledge of U.S. carrier stock,” the Galaxy Note 10 devices in the United States will all have Qualcomm chipsets, as has been the case for every Samsung flagship for years. He says the chipsets will be the Snapdragon 855, which is what we have always expected.

The original article based on the first rumor is preserved below.

As the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 nears its launch on August 7, the rumors are starting to pile up. Today, leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks) offered some more speculation on the device’s internals, and it has big implications for its performance.

In a tweet, Blass indicated Samsung will sell only one Galaxy Note 10 series model in the U.S. with a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. This would be the Verizon-branded Note 10 with the Snapdragon 855 chip.

All other U.S. versions of the device, and those sold worldwide, would come with one of Samsung’s in-house Exynos chips. Blass suggests this will be an unannounced chip called the Exynos 9825 — seemingly, a sequel to the Exynos 9820 found in the Galaxy S10 series.

If the speculation is accurate, that means the recently announced Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset won’t feature in any Galaxy Note 10 models.

It’s not clear if the same applies to the rumored Galaxy Note 10 Plus variant, though Blass quoted an earlier tweet about both versions in his latest comments. I suspect the story is the same for the regular Note 10 and the Note 10 Plus.

What’s that mean to us?

As well as sporting the Exynos 9820 in some regions, U.S. Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus models arrived with a Snapdragon 855 chipset. However, the real-world performance difference between these chips can be stark, as you’ll see in this Gary Explains video.

The 855, based on the 7nm process, performed better than the 8nm based Exynos 9820 in our tests, so the question now is: how big of an upgrade would this Exynos 9825 chipset represent?

It’s ostensibly going to be an iterative upgrade — and possibly unique to the Galaxy Note 10 — so it may feature only a few minor tweaks. These may not be enough to push it past the Snapdragon 855 in overall performance, which would mean anyone buying the Verizon Galaxy Note 10 is destined to own a weaker handset.

Alternatively, the Exynos 9825 may have the edge over the Snapdragon 855, meaning Verizon could have gotten exclusive access to the best performing Galaxy Note 10 on the market.

Either way, if Verizon does get this exclusive, I’d hold off for some performance analysis before pre-ordering a unit in The States. Hang tight, we’ll have more in the coming days.