Samsung is reportedly back with a battery company that supplied for it two years back. Accordingly, a fresh report from TheElec says that the company will use batteries from China’s Amperex Technology Limited(ATL) for the upcoming Galaxy S21 series.
The report focuses mainly on the contract that ATI has acquired from Samsung now. It says the company will make batteries with capacities of 4,000mAh, 4,800mAh, and 5,000mAh. This goes in-line with the latest listing on China’s 3C certification website. It had revealed that a battery, probably belonging to a Galaxy device with model EB-BG998ABY and a typical value of 4,885mAh. Also, the ‘G998’ is reportedly indicating the S21 Ultra but that we aren’t sure of that yet. If reports are true, the S21 series -Galaxy S21, S21+, and S21 Ultra could sport batteries of the above capacities.
Further, the report also says that this is the first time for ATI to acquire orders for all the models in the S21 series. Previously, ATI seems to have supplied for the Galaxy A, and the new M smartphones along with China’s BYD Co Ltd. However, in 2016, Samsung removed ATI from the list after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. After the battery problem in Note 7, Samsung reportedly switched over to its own sister entity, Samsung SDI. It also tried to widen the options by including rivals like LG Chem, Electric, Almus, and ITM Semiconductor.
However, it seems to have turned back to the roots now. And, if the reports are true, new transition to ATL is to probably save costs. While the exact reason is a mystery, ATL reportedly supplied briefly Galaxy S9 after the initial batch. Also, according to the report, Samsung SDI and LG Chem have the upper hand in small-size batteries. Samsung might have feared their domination with monopoly pricing. It will be interesting to see if the transition will affect battery quality in the upcoming flagship devices. That said, the company is yet to officially say anything about this.
Though it is too early to talk about specs, rumors so far say the devices will probably have a punch-hole sAMOLED display, Exynos 2100 SoC, skip the third-party ToF sensor, and include its own ISOCELL Vizion sensor.
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