The first day of the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2021 brings the announcement of the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile platform, which will be used in the top-of-the-range smartphones expected in 2022.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 — a name that identifies the first product that Qualcomm presents combined with the new way of indicating product names. A few days ago, the San Diego company announced its intention to adopt a new nomenclature for its products, separating the Qualcomm and Snapdragon brands and going to indicate products for mobile systems with a single number structure flanked by a generation indicator.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 comes to improve six aspects — 5G connectivity, camera sensors, AI, gaming, audio and security — which are just the most important elements today when we seek to acquire a new Android smartphone.
It is manufactured in 4nm and is the first Qualcomm processor to be built under the Armv9 architecture. The Kryo CPU has a first 3.0GHz Cortex-X2 main core, three Cortex-A710 cores that clock at 2.5GHz, and four Cortex-A510 cores that stay at 1.8GHz.
Regarding the performance offered by this new chip, the American company advises that it has been improved by 20% in power and 30% in efficiency compared to its predecessor. New Adreno GPU that promises a 30% improvement in graphics rendering and a 25% improvement in energy efficiency.
The new chip integrates substantial improvements to the camera, however, the company has gone one step further and announced an agreement with Sony to jointly develop chips and sensors at the company’s San Diego headquarters. The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 brings mobile phones closer than ever to professional cameras. It does so thanks to Snapdragon Sight technology, which includes the first 18-bit ISP created for mobile devices. It captures more than 4,000 times more data from the camera than its predecessor, allowing it to handle better dynamic range, color and sharpness at speeds of up to 3.2 gigapixels per second.
Around connectivity, there are improvements thanks to the fourth generation of its own Snapdragon X65 5G modem with support for 10Gbps speeds and paired with the FastConnect 6900 Mobile Connectivity system to offer the best speeds of WiFi 6.
Qualcomm wants to take the real step forward with this chip when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence. Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 comes with the 7th generation QualcommAI engine, which is equipped with the ultra-high performance and efficient Qualcomm Hexagon processor.
Four times faster than before for a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip with Bluetooth LE Audio and the company’s latest AptX Lossless wireless audio technology.
Finally, Qualcomm has included the new Trust Management Engine and supports the Android Ready SE standard with support for digital car keys, driver’s license, ID cards and more.
The first Android phones that will feature the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip will be launched later this year, and among them, we have manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Nubia, Motorola, OPPO, realme, SHARP, Sony, Black Shark, Honor, iQOO, Vivo, OnePlus and ZTE.
