Samsung's new Exynos chipset for budget-friendly phones packs a punch

We reported a few days ago about Samsung's new Exynos 880 chipset, which has been specifically designed for mid-range 5G smartphones. Surprisingly, that SoC (system-on-chip) isn't the only one that Samsung introduced this month.

The Exynos 850 didn't receive the same amount of publicity, probably because it's aimed at budget-friendly smartphones like the Galaxy A21s that's been unveiled about two weeks ago.

Even though it's positioned almost at the bottom of the list of chipsets manufactured by Samsung when it comes to performance, the Exynos 850 provides support for powerful specs in the world of affordable smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy A21s is the living proof that the Exynos 850 is a great chipset for cheap Android smartphones. The phone packs a massive 6.5-inch Super AMOLED HD+ display, quad-camera setup (48MP+8MP+2MP+2MP), 64GB expandable storage, and up to 6GB RAM.

According to Samsung, the Exynos 850 accommodates a 2GHz octa-core processor (ARM Cortex-55 cores), a Mali-G52 GPU (graphics processing unit), and features support for LPDD4X RAM and eMMC 5.1 storage. It lacks 5G support, but it does include Cat.7 LTE connectivity, as well as support for full HD+ screens.

The Exynos 850 is manufactured using the company's 8nm LPP process, which makes the chipset quite thin without compromising on performance and energy efficiency. On the camera front, Exynos 850 supports 21.7MP single cameras (rear and front) or dual setups that include 16MP and 5MP sensors.

Samsung's new budget-friendly chipset seems to be extremely competitive on paper, but the Exynos 850 must prove its value in real life, so we won't know how good it really is until the first phones powered by the chipset hit shelves.