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When you buy a new gadget, you want to know what you’re getting. You want to know the specs, and you also want to know that the specs written on the box are the same as what’s actually inside of your gadget. If the brand new notebook you bought at the store came with only an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU instead of a Sandy Bridge one, you’d be angry, right?
Not in the case of Samsung’s anticipated successor to their Galaxy S Android smartphone, theGalaxy S II. Why? Well, if you buy a Samsung Galaxy S II, you’ll have no idea what you are getting inside: some will boast an NVIDIA Tegra 2 inside, and others won’t.
It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. In some Samsung Galaxy S II boxes, you’ll find handsets that use NVIDIA’s excellent dual-core SoC to power things, while others will contain Samsung’s own system-on-a-chip, the inferior Exynos. Worst of all, there’s absolutely no way to tell which one you’re getting at retail: it’s random right down to the SKU number.
Pretty clearly, this is a supply issue, but not the way you think: the Galaxy S II is supposed to have an Exynos inside, but apparently, Samsung was simply incapable of supplying enough of their own SoC, and had to contract with NVIDIA to pitch in some Tegra 2 to meet demand.
It’s a pity Samsung didn’t decide to switch over to the Tegra 2 entirely. . The dual-core Tegra 2 is a great SoC: heck, it even has its own Android app now. It’s just too bad that the Galaxy S II is only a Tegra 2 device by chance and luck, not design.
