Samsung it seems has succeeded in freezing out most of its competitors before the launch of all the rival brands' premium flagship smartphones.
A rumor was floating around in January that Sony would launch its Sony Xperia Z5 Premium successor on Feb. 27 at Mobile world Congress (MWC) 2017 at its press event.
The flagship smartphone from Sony was hinted to come with a 4K display along with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 as its processor. The latest Snapdragon chipset was launched at the CES 2017 by Qualcomm.
Latest reports suggest something else entirely regarding Sony's flagship launch. According to Twitter user @ricciolo1, Sony is working on a new flagship smartphone for sure but it won't be launched at the MWC 2017. The prototype will be displayed to Sony's partners but in utter secrecy.
PREMIUM flagship is coming... but don't hold your breath for #MWC #mwc17 , except the secret rooms... ;) #xperia #Sony #z5premium #successor
— Ricciolo (@Ricciolo1) February 1, 2017
The reason as to why this decision was taken may apparently have something to do with Samsung and the Qualcomm chipset. According to industry insiders, Samsung has called dibs on the entire first batch supply of the recently-launched Snapdragon 835 for the impending Galaxy 8, leaving last year chipsets for other OEMs to use.
The news doesn't comes as a surprise given the fact that Qualcomm is building the Snapdragon 835 chipset in partnership with Samsung, as the processor is based on the latter's 10nm manufacturing process.
The Sony Xperia Z5 Premium successor is supposed to house a Qualcomm 835 chipset like most other top-end 2017 smartphones. Due to Samsung hoarding of the entire batch of Snapdragon chipsets, Sony apparently is left with no choice other than to postpone its launch. It would make no sense for the company to launch its premium handsets in February given it can only hit the market in May or June, as the Samsung Galaxy S8 series would release in late April.
The shortage has not only affected Sony but has also left other OEMs with very few options.
LG To House Snapdragon 821 In Its Premium Flagship
LG, other than Sony, is also bearing the brunt of Samsung's tactical play as it will be housing Snapdragon 821 instead of Snapdragon 835 in its premium flagship LG G6 per rumors. LG had few options to consider in this situation, as the other alternative would have been to postpone the launch of the smartphone.
LG decided not to back off the launch and go ahead with Snapdragon 821 instead. The 6 GB of RAM of the upcoming LG G6 is rumored to be the saving grace of the smartphone in absence of the latest Qualcomm processor.
Whatever the facts may be, Samsung is in a win-win situation as it has made sure that the upcoming Galaxy 8 series has the edge one way or the other.
