Samsung’s low and mid-end smartphones can be mighty confusing, with names like Galaxy J2 Pro (2018), On7 Prime, J7+, Pro and Max, and the same goes for the chaebol’s non-flagship home-brewed mobile processors.

For instance, the Exynos 9610 SoC unveiled earlier today is billed as a 7 Series release, upgrading the specifications of the 7885 found inside the upper mid-range Galaxy A8 (2018) and A8+ (2018) handsets.

Samsung greatly contributes to the confusion by repeatedly describing the 9610 as targeted at high-end smartphones in the company’s latest press release. But even though the brand-new chip, which will enter mass production in the “second half of this year”, is built on the same 10-nanometer FinFET process as the Galaxy S9’s 9810, this is clearly not meant to power the likes of the Note 9.

Instead, its goal is to bring “premium multimedia features” to the next generation of Galaxy mid-rangers. Said “premium features” include deep learning-based image processing for “ultimate picture-taking experiences”, aka AI photography. And “stunning” slow motion video recording at 480 frames per second in Full HD, which actually beats the S9 duo’s 240 fps support for 1080p content production. Then again, the S9 and S9+ are also capable of super-slow-mo 960 fps capturing in 720p.

Back to the Exynos 7 Series 9610, we should mention the octa-core CPU is comprised of four 2.3GHz Cortex-A73 cores and a Cortex-A53 quartet clocked at 1.6GHz. A second-gen Bifrost-based ARM Mali-G72 GPU offers “more realistic and immersive graphics on mobile devices”, while an embedded “all-network” LTE modem supports Cat.12 3CA (carrier aggregation) at 600Mbps for downlink and Cat.13 2CA at 150Mbps for uplink.

Bottom line, this is an impressive high-end (-ish) SoC that perhaps stands out the most with claims of “intelligently enhanced face detection” technology. Samsung is still unlikely to catch up to Apple in the facial authentication arena, but at least the Exynos 9610 promises to make facial recognition possible even when you’re not facing forward or hair and hats come into play.