There is one more confirmation of the presence of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus onboard the next Samsung folding, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and the Galaxy Z Fold 4: it comes from Ice Universe, a generally very reliable and precise source, especially as far as it’s about the South Korean giant. The indiscretion had already circulated several times, even from the same source, but we know that the sector is rapidly evolving and things change very quickly, so a confirmation every now and then, especially when the date of presentation, can only be convenient.
Also because the question is more important than usual: generally the upgrade from the regular to the “plus” version of Qualcomm’s top-of-the-range chips is, all in all, negligible – of course, there is a little more power thanks to slightly higher frequencies, but there is nothing else worth reporting; but this year the foundry will change, and conspicuous improvements are expected, especially from the thermal point of view.
I confirm again that Fold4 and Flip4 will use TSMC Snapdragon 8 gen1 plus (SM8475)
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) May 6, 2022
S8G1 is manufactured by Samsung’s own foundries, and apparently, Qualcomm wasn’t too happy with it. The 4nm manufacturing process is said to be rather inefficient – less than half of the chips that come out of the machines are “healthy”, with no flaws, and with the Exynos 2200 the percentage is even lower – and even the perfect chips do a lot of effort from the point of view of temperatures and consumption. S8G1 + should instead be produced by TSMC, on a process always at 4 nm but better finished than the Samsung one; in a nutshell, the chip could be faster by about 10%, guarantee a slightly higher autonomy with the same battery and heatless.
The next generation Galaxy Zs are expected to arrive during the third quarter of the year ( with all-new color options ), but otherwise, we know relatively little. It appears that the Flip 4 will offer a larger battery and external display, but we don’t know how much, and that the Fold 4’s improvements will focus on handling (reducing thickness and weight) and cameras (inheriting much of the main module from Galaxy S22). There is still time for the picture to become more precise and detailed.