Despite smaller battery, refurbished Galaxy Note 7 may not have a downclocked processor

Samsung is expected to officially launch the refurbished Galaxy Note 7 on July 7. Rumor has it that the device may be called the Galaxy Note FE or “Fan Edition.” Samsung is reportedly going to release this device in only a handful of markets, starting with its home country of South Korea.

The company hasn’t set up a new production line for the Galaxy Note FE. They are going to be refurbished units of the Galaxy Note 7 that just have a smaller battery. Everything else remains the same. It’s going to have the specs of the ill-fated flagship.

The Galaxy Note FE is going to have the same 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display, Samsung Exynos 8890 processor with 4GB RAM, 12-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front camera as the original Galaxy Note 7.

Samsung’s Exynos 8890 processor has a cluster of four custom and four ARM Cortex A53 cores to provide a mix of high performance and power efficiency. The Galaxy Note FE has been spotted on Geekbench today, the benchmark listing has detected the 1.6GHz clock speed of the power-efficient cluster.

What this suggests is that Samsung hasn’t decided to downclock the Exynos 8890 processor even though the Galaxy Note FE is going to have a smaller battery. It may be convinced that the processor does a good enough job of managing its power needs that there’s no need to downclock the chip and take a hit on performance.

The Galaxy Note 7 had a 3,500mAh battery while the Galaxy Note FE is expected to feature a 3,200mAh cell. Other than that, everything else will be the same, the Galaxy Note FE is even expected to be offered in the same colors as the original handset.