galaxy Galaxy S8 models said to have different UFS storage types

[Reefa]

 

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Manufacturers don’t usually rattle off component models and sources for a variety of reasons. One is to protect their partners and another is to save majority of consumers from boredom. But thanks to some recent events, consumers might be a bit more paranoid about those unidentified components. Astute observers and powers users are now bringing forward the speculation that Samsung might have put different kinds of data storage chips inside the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8, which unavoidably brings up a similar but more severe case with the Huawei P10.

 

It actually isn’t that rare for OEMs to source components of the same type from different companies. Almost all of the time, however, these components are on par with each other in terms of technical specifications and performance. That, however, isn’t the case with the Huawei P10 and now the Samsung Galaxy S8, though the latter is far less extreme than the former.

 

At launch, Samsung boasted that the Galaxy S8 utilized the latest UFS 2.1 technology, currently billed as the fastest in consumer NAND storage. It even included that in its official product page. But then it was gone so suddenly and so silently. This led some more knowledgeable users to dig for clues.

 

Collecting the evidence, they discovered that Samsung used three different memory chips for its Galaxy S8 models, one from Samsung itself and two from Toshiba. The memory chip from Samsung and one of those from Toshiba did use UFS 2.1 as previously advertised. The other Toshiba chip, however, used only UFS 2.0.

 

In practice, users shouldn’t be able to easily tell the difference between the two, 800 MB/s versus 600 MB/s sequential read speeds. The same can’t be said of the recent Huawei scandal, which put a significantly slower eMMC 5.1 memory when the company was advertising UFS. Huawei pointed the finger at an industry-wide shortage of memory chips, which does seem credible given this new evidence.

 

But while Galaxy S8 owners didn’t get the short end of the stick compared to Huawei, what they’re getting is still partly a game of chance. It does raise the question of whether OEMs have done this smoke and mirrors trick before and for how long.

 

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