Every December for the past few years, Qualcomm has held an annual event in Hawaii to announce its latest flagship mobile chipset, and how could it be otherwise, this year the company has returned to comply. Thus, the protagonist has been none other than its new flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, which in addition to abandoning its old three-digit nomenclature, comes with numerous improvements to define the new generation of high-end Android devices.
Fast forward just a few days ago, we have finally been able to see the full official specifications of this chip. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile platform will be built under a 4nm process technology and supports 4K resolution with 60Hz (60 frames per second image refresh rate) or QHD + resolution with 144 Hz support.
Also, as you would expect from a new generation, this latest platform improves on the graphics processing power of its predecessor by a significant margin, although it will not offer much improved CPU performance compared to what was already possible with the Snapdragon 888 Plus. , what it mostly promises is faster performance when it comes to AI-related tasks.
Specifically we will count 20% faster user experience and 30% more energy efficient compared to Qualcomm’s current flagship SoC; accompanied by a 4th generation Adreno GPU, estimated to offer 30% more performance and 25% energy savings.
Continuing for its internal structure, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will include Qualcomm’s X65 5G modem, the world’s first 10 Gigabit 5G RF-modem solution, which the company has specified will be able to achieve 10 Gbps theoretical download speeds. And it’s also the world’s first 5G uplink carrier aggregation – that is, multiple frequency bands used together – for potentially faster upload speeds on mobile devices than ever before.
However, this is a more impressive quality on paper than in reality, at least for the moment, as some of the faster 5G networks still cannot offer speeds above 4Gbps even under the most ideal conditions.
Moreover, this modem will also be compatible with current WiFi 6 and 6E standards, being able to support download speeds of up to 3.6 Gbps through this wireless connection.
In addition, it is the first Qualcomm SoC to incorporate the first Bluetooth LE Audio features as a voice return channel for gaming, stereo recording and audio streaming, including dual Bluetooth antennas, Bluetooth 5.2, and aptX Adaptive support.
The Qualcomm Aqstic audio codec is up for grabs, with a new Qualcomm Aqstic smart speaker amplifier, Qualcomm’s latest voice and audio communication suite, and Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise (THD + N) and -108dB reproduction. Although in relation to audio they will also stand out Audiokinetic technology for games, with what Qualcomm calls a «console-quality surround sound«.
Additionally, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 will work with Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0 FP and OpenGL ES 3.2 API support, HDR games, Adreno Frame Motion Engine, volumetric rendering and physical rendering. Qualcomm goes so far as to call Epic Games support for Unreal Engine 5, with all the conveniences that this specific support provides.
With its combination of performance improvements and new features, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 offers an intriguing look at the next generation of Android flagships. Now we have to wait to see what capabilities manufacturers decide to enable on their latest devices. And it is that the first phones equipped with these new processors They will arrive at the end of this year.
