Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus benchmark suggests the US could get the best version

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus is sure to be a very powerful phone, but exactly how powerful might depend on which region you buy it in. That was the case with the Samsung Galaxy S20 range, and a new benchmark suggests the same might be true again with the S21.

A Geekbench listing for a phone with the model number SM-G996U has been spotted by SamMobile, and that’s a model number that looks to follow on from the SM-G986 number belonging to the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, with the ‘U’ at the end referring to the region – likely the US.

The benchmark includes mention of the Snapdragon 875 chipset, 8GB of RAM, and Android 11, and the tested phone achieved a single-core score of 1,120 and a multi-core result of 3,319.

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Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus benchmark — (Image credit: Geekbench)

Now, those numbers are notable because both are higher than an earlier benchmark for the same phone running an Exynos 2100 chipset. That model achieved scores of 1,038 and 3,060.

Based on past form, Europe (and potentially some other regions) will get the Exynos version of the Samsung Galaxy S21 range, while the US will get the Snapdragon version, meaning that – if these scores are accurate – the US will probably get a more powerful version of the range.

The same thing happened with the Galaxy S20 range so this is believable, but it’s far from certain, as early benchmarks aren’t always accurate, and this latest one arrived months after the Exynos one, so Samsung will have had more time to optimize the handset.

As an aside, it’s notable also that the chipset and RAM are identical to those listed in a recent benchmark believed to be for the OnePlus 9 Pro, yet while that phone’s single-core result was in line with this one, its multi-core one was much lower at 2,733. So benchmarks are all over the place.

The only thing we can be confident of for now is that all of these flagships will be very powerful, and even if some are more powerful than others, the difference in day to day use is unlikely to be noticeable.