The American giant Qualcomm organizes today a conference intended to present us its innovations as regards mobile chipsets. After the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 already well established in the landscape of android smartphoneswe discover two new references that we can’t wait to test.
We were almost right. Finally, Qualcomm’s new SoC is not called “Snapdragon 8 Gen1+” but “Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1”. We’ll get over it. But still, the company promises great things with its state-of-the-art chips. And, in particular, with its Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 which could occupy a place of choice among mid-range smartphones.
Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1: always higher, always stronger!
It’s on his marital status. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is a hormone-boosted 8 Gen 1. Like the 888+ or 865+ models before it, this new SoC has the mission of pushing the performance sliders even further.
Already among the most powerful platforms on the market, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 sees here its clock frequencies pushed to their limits. If the fineness of engraving does not evolve (we remain in 4 nm, but this time at TSMC rather than Samsung), Qualcomm promises a gain of 10% in performance on the Adreno 730 GPU and energy efficiency up 30%. Sufficient, according to the manufacturer, to promise us about 1 hour of additional play compared to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
On the CPU side, we keep an 8-core configuration. But frequencies have once again been accelerated by 10% and efficiency by 30%. Which gives us, in detail, 1 core clocked at 3.19 GHz, 3 cores at 2.75 GHz and 4 cores at 1.80 GHz.
In the same vein, the chip is equipped with the latest version of the Qualcomm AI Engine, offering performance up to 20% on tasks involving AI.
No change to note on the modem or image processor side, however. We will stay on an X65 model compatible with millimeter waves of 5G, and Wi-Fi 6E on one side, and a Qualcomm Spectra on the other. A difference remains notable compared to the 8 Gen 1: the chip is now compatible with Bluetooth 5.3.
Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 to reinvigorate the mid-range
It’s a fact: Qualcomm is losing more and more ground every year to rival MediaTek. Ever more fierce, the latter now provides excellent SoCs to OEMs looking to launch high-performance smartphones at low cost.
But here is the response that is being organized. With the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, Qualcomm intends to go to the front and cut a nice slice of the cake.
Taking over from the Snapdragon 780 5G, this new SoC adopts 4 nm engraving and is equipped with an 8-core CPU (up to 2.4 GHz) and a GPU on which Qualcomm has been sparing in detail, but which is 20% faster than the previous model. The smartphone additionally comes with the entire Snapdragon Elite Gaming suite, ensuring minimal latency and HDR rendering where possible.
In terms of connectivity, that’s not even a question anymore. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 offers full 5G compatibility, including mmWave. The X62 5G modem promises a maximum theoretical throughput of 4.4 Gbps (10 Gbps for SD 8+ Gen 1) and a set of features aimed at reducing power consumption by automatically switching from 5G to 4G when access to these strips is not necessary.
The chip also allows you to take advantage of Bluetooth 5.3, as well as Wi-Fi 6E at a maximum speed of 3.6 Gbps.
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 also allows the use of an FHD + screen clocked at 144 Hz, or QHD + at 60 Hz. As for the photo part, the ISP Qualcomm Spectra supports sensors up to 200 megapixels and video capture in 4K HDR at 30 frames per second.
What will be the first smartphones to benefit from it?
Without explaining which models in particular will benefit from its new chips, Qualcomm already indicates that ASUS ROG, Black Shark, HONOR, iQOO, Lenovo, Motorola, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, OSOM, realme, RedMagic, Redmi, vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE are all designing smartphones with either a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 or Snapdragon 7 Gen 1.
Samsung is not part of the list, but we already know that at least one of its two new folding smartphones, the Galaxy Z Flip 4, will be equipped with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 thanks to an encouraging first benchmark.
Moreover, Qualcomm indicates that certain models of smartphones equipped with its brand new SoCs will arrive in the third quarter of 2022. Which will be the first to pass through our hands? We let you make your bets in the comments.
On the same subject :
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4: a first benchmark gives the measure of its power
Source: press release
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