As the year draws to a close, chatter about Samsung’s next smartphone flagship intensifies. The Galaxy S11 isn’t expected to hit stores until early March, but we’ll learn everything about it well before Samsung gets to introduce it. Late last week, the first renders for Galaxy S11 versions emerged, suggesting that Samsung’s next phone will look a lot like the Galaxy Note 10 and feature a main camera system similar to what you can find on iPhone 11 and Pixel 4. A brand new leak, however, gives us a first glimpse at the Galaxy S11’s specs, and we already have great and not so great news about it.
An early Geekbench test (via SamMobile) for a Galaxy S11 model has been discovered online. That’s model number SM-G986B, which will be sold as the Galaxy S11 5G apparently.
Recent rumors said that Samsung will have multiple Galaxy S11 5G versions in stores next year, not just a single model, as it was the case for the Galaxy S10 series. That means it’ll be even cheaper to own a 5G device.
The benchmark test, seen above, reveals the SM-G986B sports 12GB of RAM and runs on Android 10. From the looks of it, the regular Galaxy S11 will sport just as much RAM as the Plus version — this year, only the Galaxy S10+ came with 12GB of memory onboard.
Also, we’re apparently looking at the Exynos 990 version of the Galaxy S11 5G. That’s Samsung’s newest chip that’s supposed to compete against Apple’s A13 and Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 865.
The phone scores 427 and 2326 in this early Geekbench 5 test and this is where the not so great news comes in. This may be a first benchmark, but the scores are nowhere near what the iPhone 11’s A13 delivers:
Here’s a head-to-head comparison:
The A13 obliterates the Exynos 990 in this test. Benchmark tests are one thing, and real-life performance is another, of course. But the newest iPhones have no rival when it comes to speed in real-life conditions. The only advantage of top 2019 Android phones lies in the RAM department, with most flagships sporting 8GB of RAM or better. Scores will certainly improve for the Galaxy S11 as we get closer to launch, but it’ll be interesting to see whether the Exynos 990 can reach the iPhone 11’s performance in such tests.
Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S11 in mid-February, right before MWC 2020.
