Another year, another lackluster battery upgrade for a high-profile Samsung phone
The lack of any upgrades in the battery department adds up to a list of features that are already heavily rumored to remain unchanged. Presently, upgrades to the camera and charging speeds have been denied by the rumor mill, leaving the only meaningful upgrade a chipset upgrade and probably faster storage.
The Galaxy Note 7 curse hasn’t been lifted still
That’s par for the course with Samsung, which still feels the proverbial heat from the Galaxy Note 7 disaster back in the day and is more than reluctant to adopt new battery technologies like silicon-carbon chemistry. That’s the reason Samsung’s Galaxy S Ultra phones have had 5,000 mAh batteries since… they were introduced back in 2020.
This has enabled the large swath of Chinese manufacturers to equip most of their devices with very energy-dense batteries that combine high capacity with compact size.
The root cause for Samsung’s hesitation to adopt new battery technologies could be traced back to the Galaxy Note 7, which suffered a catastrophic design flaw that caused a number of units to catch on fire.
An unchanged battery doesn’t mean equal battery life
You’d find a custom overclocked Snapdragon chip in most Galaxy flagship phones, one that’s slightly faster than the same chip available to other manufacturers. While this is not a perfect solution, it’s better than having to rely on a slower chipset, that’s for sure.
This foldable is not about hardware superiority, but some uprgades here or there wouldn’t hurt | Image by PhoneArena
A storm in a teacup?
The Galaxy Z Flip has always been marketed as the more approachable foldable in Samsung’s portfolio, one aimed at consumers that aren’t really concerned about the latest specs or hardware innovation.
The design is much more important in this case, and the Galaxy Z Flip 7 exterior upgrade gave us a larger outer screen and a more robust body last year. Given that all eyes are on Apple right now, which is expected to announce its first foldable iPhone this fall, it makes perfect sense that Samsung would focus on its larger and more intriguing foldables, which would be in direct contention with the iPhone.
