U.S. version of the Samsung Galaxy S II may keep the Exynos chipset after all

Those of you who have been patiently waiting for the highly-anticipated Samsung Galaxy S II to launch across the U.S. might be disappointed to hear this, but at least one of the North American versions of the smartphone, the AT&T-bound Samsung Attain in particular, will most likely drop the 1.2GHz Exynos chipset in favor of NVIDIA's Tegra 2 silicon. That is what became apparent after a Galaxy S II variant listed by its GT-I9103 model name was spotted at the FCC with support for AT&T's frequencies.

The FCC filing itself does not reveal much in terms of the smartphone's internal specs, but a quick check in GLBenchmark's database shows a Samsung-made device with the same GT-I9103 model name sporting a Tegra 2 chipset. This, of course, is not the first time when we hear about a Tegra 2-powered Samsung Galaxy S II being under development, but now we have enough evidence to believe that the said smartphone will be marketed in the U.S.

Well, the Tegra 2 chip still packs more than enough processing power to handle almost anything that you would throw at it, but our benchmarks showed that Samsung's Exynos silicon has the upper hand. Nevertheless, would this make you have second thoughts and go with a different superphone instead of the U.S.-tailored Samsung Galaxy S II? Feel free to let us know by dropping a comment below.

source: FCC, GLBenchmark via Android Authority

UPDATE: It turns out that the Samsung GT-I9103 that we mentioned above is the Samsung Galaxy Z - a smartphone similar, yet different from the Samsung Galaxy S II. The Galaxy Z is only a downgraded version of the Galaxy S II, which means that the latter may launch in the U.S. with a Exynos chipset after all.

Thanks to everyone, who pointed this out!