Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip is destined to equip many high-end smartphones, starting in 2022. — Picture courtesy of Qualcomm
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 3 — During its annual “Snapdragon Tech Summit,” which is exceptionally being held online this year, Qualcomm unveiled its new 5G chip destined to equip upcoming flagship smartphones from 2022. Chinese manufacturers Xiaomi and Oppo should be among the first to use it in their handsets.
This new 5G mobile platform opens up new opportunities for consumers. In fact, future smartphones equipped with the chip will see boosted performance in 5G, photo/video capture and gaming capabilities.
With this new system-on-chip (SoC), dubbed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Qualcomm promises download speeds of up to 10 Gbps over 5G and 3.6 Gbps over WiFi.
In terms of cameras, this mobile platform will make it possible to capture more and more detail in every image, processing up to 3.2 Gigapixels per second. It will also be capable of capturing 8K HDR video for the first time ever. According to Qualcomm, the chip will even be powerful enough to shoot with a blurred, bokeh-like background.
Gamers will be particularly spoiled, with ultra-fluid responsiveness and gaming performance comparable to that of a PC. The new graphics processing unit (GPU) integrated into this platform offers a 30 per cent increase in graphics rendering capabilities. Qualcomm also says that the chip can generate twice as many images while maintaining the same power consumption. Onscreen, the results should be unprecedented for a smartphone, especially when it comes to effects like fog or smoke.
Finally, this SoC is the first Snapdragon mobile platform to support all the new features of the Bluetooth LE audio standard.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is expected to be used from the beginning of 2022 by brands such as Honor, iQOO, Motorola, Nubia, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Sony, Vivo and Xiaomi. — ETX Studio