According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 865 chipset is "5G loaded" and ready to power the next round of flagship Android smartphones from early 2020. It will almost certainly be at the heart of the Samsung Galaxy S11, Note 11, LG G9, OnePlus 8, Google Pixel 5, etc., though the official list of Snapdragon 865 phones will have to wait, probably until MWC 2020. Qualcomm's new 5G chipset, unveiled at its annual Snapdragon Tech Summit in Hawaii, heralds what to expect from your smartphone next year. This will be on most high-end phones, everything except Huawei phones and Apple iPhones. But even iPhone owners should pay attention to the new features of the Snapdragon 865. Qualcomm's roadmap often determines where the mobile industry is headed, and we know that Qualcomm modems will start to be used in the iPhone 5G. The Snapdragon 865 features are primarily focused on boosting 5G speeds, doubling gaming performance, and improving photography and video by using more cameras than currently used in smartphones.
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Snapdragon 865 specifications
Qualcomm offers a new architecture among its Snapdragon 865 specs, consisting of a Kryo 585 processor, Adreno 650 GPU, Hexagon 698 processor, and sensing hub. According to Qualcomm, its processor can reach 2,84 GHz, and the GPU is supposed to offer 20% faster graphics rendering. We will be releasing Snapdragon 865 benchmarks soon to confirm these numbers. However, the data sheet for the Snapdragon 865 stands out with a 35% increase in power efficiency compared to intense tasks such as gaming. As powerful as GPUs have become in smartphones, peak performance only lasts long before throttling takes hold. Qualcomm says it wants to go further with the new 865 chip.
Snapdragon 865 to 5G, but without integration
The Snapdragon 865 manages 5G in two ways: it will be faster with download speeds of up to 7.5 Gbps, and it will end up on more smartphones than you really want in 2020. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem achieves these peak download speeds through the mmWave and sub-6 standards, the backbone of 5G. But it also uses tricks like Dynamic Spectrum Sharing, which combines 5G and 4G spectrum for faster performance. Download speed should also improve to reach 3 Gbps under ideal 5G conditions. This is something we haven't really seen from mobile carriers during our US 5G speed tests, because the hype around uplink speeds has long lost good download speed performance. Interestingly, the Snapdragon 865 is mated to the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem as a separate chip. This means that the modem isn't really integrated with the mobile chipset, but you won't get 4G with the Snapdragon 865 either. separate. But this could affect the size and power consumption of the next smartphones. Snapdragon's technical summit continues this week. We will have more updates on the Snapdragon 865 and hopefully the first benchmarks of the chipset.