If you’ve bought a new phone this year, it’s highly likely to be powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 820 processor.
Well, your new phone is already outdated. Qualcomm has now officially announced its new Snapdragon 821 chip, which is said to provide a 10% performance boost over the 820.
In a statement, the company writes: “Building on the technology leadership introduced with the Snapdragon 820 platform, the 821 is engineered to deliver faster speed, improved power savings, and greater application performance.”
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The Snapdragon 820 powers most of the current major smartphones
Qualcomm says the chip is capable of reaching speeds up to 2.4GHz, and has been introduced to “complement and extend the competitive strengths of the Snapdragon 800 lineup”.
That means the new technology hasn’t been design to replace the 820, and is intended to be an interim entry in the lineup, ahead of a full next-gen release.
The 821 itself uses much of the technology from the 820, including the 600Mbps X12 LTE modem and Upload+ for fast downloads.
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Numerous major phones, including the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, Xiaomi Mi5, LG G5, HTC 10, and Sony Xperia X are powered by the Snapdragon 820.
Devices powered by the 821 will start to arrive in the second half of 2016, according to Qualcomm, so expect a slew of forthcoming handsets to be packing one of the flagship chips.
HTC’s upcoming Nexus phones could well make use of Qualcomm’s new chip, while there’s also talk of possible stand-alone VR headsets running on the 821.
Qualcomm hasn’t yet released any more details, but expect to hear more in the coming months.
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Looking forward to a new chip from Qualcomm. Let us know what you think in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
