Samsung, clearly not resting on its laurels after it claimed the best smartphone throne in 2019 with its superlative Galaxy S10 Plus, is now lining up the weapons of war that next year's S-series flagship, the Galaxy S11 Plus, will wield to defend its crown.
And one of the weapons that now seems set for the armoury is 12GB of LPDDR5 mobile DRAM, with Samsung leakster-in-chief Ice universe revealing that the South Korean company has just begun mass-production of the industry's first example of the next-gen memory.
According to Ice's commentary, Samsung began producing the 10nm-class 12GB LPDDR5 memory module in July 2019 and, as can be seen from the attached chart, this new DRAM offers a much faster 5,500Mb/s speed than the pre-existing LPDDR4X examples, or the LPDDR4 memory found in the Galaxy S10. That would translate as faster phone performance across the board.
Samsung Begins Mass Production of Industry’s First 12Gb LPDDR5 Mobile DRAM for Premium Smartphones pic.twitter.com/UaJtoBMOJTJuly 18, 2019
With the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 launch event now mere weeks away, here at T3 we think it safe to say that this LPDDR5 memory is definitely not making an appearance in the new Note, which is backed up by recent reports that state up to 12GB is likely, but that it will probably be LPDDR4X.
And considering Ice universe mentions the memory is for "Premium Smartphones", and that the lead time appears right, that naturally leads to the conclusion that this new flagship RAM module is set for the flagship launched after the Note 10, which will be the Samsung Galaxy S11 Plus.
After all, while Samsung does tend to launch its more mid-range A-range of handsets in October, which could theoretically be fitted with the new LPDDR5 memory (although we feel that would be realistically too tight), we can't see the maker equip so much RAM, and such fast RAM, in a mid-range device. Something special and expensive like this seems destined for a top-tier flagship.
And if the Galaxy S11 Plus is equipped with 12GB of LPDDR5 memory, that is news that will likely cause concern for Huawei, who would then have an even tougher fight on its hands next year in preparing its P40 Pro handset for war and to take back the best phone throne.
After all, the Galaxy S11 series already now seems likely to feature a Picasso masterpiece-level design (see above video for one interpretation of how it could look), a super poweful 64-megapixel camera, a next-gen 5nm chipset, and now 12GB of rapid LPDDR5 DRAM. And that is one hell of stacked hardware line up to surmount.
With Huawei now apparently cleared once more to use the Android OS, though, the Chinese smartphone maker looks well positioned to start a fierce counterattack on Samsung, starting with its Huawei Mate 30 series in October and then with its P40 series next March. A truly win-win situation for phone buyers the world over.
