Samsung's Exynos processors aren't that popular with third-party manufacturers. They're primarily used by Samsung in its own smartphones while only a few manufacturers like Meizu have started gradually picking these chips up for their smartphones. Samsung is now looking to change that and it thinks that standalone virtual reality headsets stand to benefit from its powerful new chip.
The Exynos 8895 is the latest chip from Samsung which is part of its premium Exynos 9 series of silicon. Samsung is going to target this processor at high-end smartphones and virtual reality headsets. The chip will debut with some variants of the Galaxy S8 later this month. The Exynos 8895 is being pitched as a viable option for standalone virtual reality headsets that don't require a smartphone to function like the Gear VR does.
It has four custom and four Cortex-A53 cores with a 20-core ARM Mali G71 graphics processor. It's capable of handling 4K playback and recording at 120 frames per second. The Exynos 8895 even has a vision processing unit for virtual reality and supports head tracking and motion detection.
According to a report, Samsung has been showing off prototype standalone virtual reality headsets behind closed doors at the Mobile World Congress 2017. These headsets operate without needing a smartphone and are meant to showcase the processing power of the new Exynos silicon. It wants companies to use this chip in their untethered VR headsets as well as high-end smartphones.
Whether or not this happens remains to be seen but Samsung does appear to be making quite a strong case for itself, not to mention the fact that the Exynos 8895 boasts impressive technical specifications.
