I bought the S20FE after watching some 4k video samples and knew that it will completely satisfy my needs. Everyone recommended the Snapdragon version over Exynos because of the overheating and battery performance, so I went with SD. But little did I know that the video results will not only differ between the two, but be as drastically different to lead me to believe that my phone is broken. There's serious loss of detail (smudge effect) on videos compared to the Exynos model. To demonstrate, please load this video and watch on 4k settings. These are some of the time frames to pause the video on:
7:39 - the smudge effect, look to the left of the nearest tree, and then the right side of image along the same horizon
7:44 - Exynos has richness of detail while SD is blurry
8:06 - the smudge effect again, look at the grass
8:20 - the SD version simply cannot retain detail with the slightest of panning, meanwhile the Exynos retains details perfectly
8:21 - look at the dirt road, lower left corner
8:25 - stop the video while panning and try to read the text on the sign; try to read SD first and than the Exynos
A different comparison showing that the ultra-wide video is basically unusable on the SD variant compared to Exynos. This is the most striking difference I could find.
Other things I noticed compared to the Exynos variant: Snapdragon has focus issues, the optical zoom performance is not as good and there is major loss of detail (smudgy) when trying to pan (even the slightest of movement) while Exynos has outstanding detail retention while panning.
I would like to have some of my questions answered by Samsung:
- Why is there such a striking difference between the video capabilities of these two chips?
- Can us Snapdragon owners expect software updates and enjoy the same video recording quality as the Exynos owners do?
Thank you in advance!
