Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Leaked benchmarks show Samsung’s powerful new Galaxy S10 still can’t beat last year’s iPhones

Published Jan 21st, 2019 9:03AM EST
Galaxy S10 Vs iPhone XS
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

Android fans, the wait is almost over. We now officially have less than one month to go before Samsung’s big press conference in San Francisco, where the company will unveil its next-generation Galaxy S flagship phones. We’ve also heard rumblings that the foldable Galaxy F phone will be detailed more extensively during the show, but for the time being let’s focus on the Galaxy S10. After all, the Galaxy F will only see a limited release and it’s expected to carry a price tag close to $2,000. The Galaxy S10 lineup of phones will be much more accessible, and it’ll feature the design overhaul Samsung fans have been craving. After the company’s decision to release a boring Galaxy S9 update last year that looked just like the Galaxy S8 and offered no new marquee features, the Galaxy S10 can’t come soon enough.

Thanks to dozens upon dozens of leaks, we know almost exactly what to expect next month when Samsung finally takes the wraps off its new Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, and Galaxy S10 Lite smartphones. Now, thanks to a fresh leak, we also know how powerful Samsung’s 2019 flagships will be.

We’ve seen some Galaxy S10 benchmarks leak in the past, but something was fishy about that first round of tests. The scores were far lower than anyone expected, and people theorized that those benchmark tests were performed on a phone that hadn’t yet been optimized for the Snapdragon 855. Samsung’s Snapdragon and Exynos phones typically score about the same on benchmark tests, so new test results that leaked on Monday morning bring fresh hope that we’re in store for some serious power out of Samsung’s new phone lineup.

As you can see in the screenshot above, a Samsung phone with model number SM-G973N appeared this morning on the Geekbench website. This model is believed to be the Galaxy S10 powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 9820 chipset, and the specs listed above match that SoC. As for the scores, this is much more in line with what we expect from Samsung’s 2019 flagship phones.

A single-core score of 4382 obliterates every other Android smartphone currently available right now in the US, and the multi-core score of 9570 also places the phone near the top of the pile. Interestingly, however, these scores still can’t touch Apple’s iPhone lineup from last year. As you can see in the screenshot below, Apple’s iPhone XS racks up a single-core score of 4797 and a multi-core score of 11265. No other smartphone out there right now even comes close to topping the iPhone’s performance.

The one thing worth noting here is that Samsung’s Galaxy S10 lineup features other models that might come a bit closer to matching Apple’s 2018 iPhones. The Galaxy S10 featured in the Geekbench test above has 6GB of RAM, but we’re also expecting versions of the phone with 8GB and even 10GB of RAM. Those models might see slight bumps in performance, though it likely won’t be enough to put them on par with the likes of Apple’s iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.

Samsung will unveil its new Galaxy S10 series smartphones on February 20th, and they’re expected to hit store shelves a few weeks later in early March.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.