Rumor mill: Samsung and Apple have long been rivals in the smartphone world, but could they also soon have competing laptop SoCs? According to a new report, the Korean firm’s 2019 partnership with AMD to create an RDNA-powered GPU for mobile devices could lead to an Exynos-based laptop with integrated Radeon graphics.
According to ZDNet Korea, a Windows 10 Samsung laptop featuring an Exynos SoC with an integrated AMD GPU will arrive later this year, sometime after the release of the next, and possibly last, Galaxy Note handset. There have been rumors that Samsung won’t launch another Note, but it seems the company hasn’t given up on the series yet.
Samsung earlier this year said that its “next flagship product” would use an Exynos SoC featuring AMD’s RDNA graphics tech. It was assumed this would appear in one of the company’s premium smartphones, such as the Galaxy Fold, but it could land in laptops first. These will differ from AMD’s integrated GPUs in its APUs; Samsung’s version will be custom.
The Galaxy Book S never set the world on fire
Apple’s M1 chips have been widely praised for their performance compared to Intel’s alternatives, and Samsung will be hoping to replicate this with its in-house solution. It won’t be the company’s first foray into Arm-based laptops—the Samsung Galaxy Book S is one of several machines powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx—but the Exynos SoC could more closely match the M1 and CPUs from Intel/AMD in terms of performance.
The report also states that the laptop’s display, memory, battery, and storage will all come from Samsung itself, suggesting it will feature one of the firm’s new OLED screens.
Earlier this week, we heard that Samsung is set to reveal its RDNA-based mobile GPU at an event this June, so we may discover more about the laptop in a few months.