Snapdragon 888: The biggest features coming to Android phones

(Prototype credit: Qualcomm)

The Snapdragon 888 system-on-chip unveiled by Qualcomm this week should deliver a noticeable performance boost to side by side twelvemonth'due south flagship Android phones. Subsequently all, this is Qualcomm'southward start 5-nanometer scrap, significant more transistors providing more power with greater efficiency. But that's not the story Qualcomm is dwelling on, as information technology talks up the merits of its latest mobile processing platform.

Instead, much of Qualcomm's focus with the Snapdragon 888 is to talk nigh how new additions to the chipset volition better your mobile photography and mobile gaming experiences — the kind of affair you're more likely to notice than whether an app launched a little bit faster on one phone or another.

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Think of it as Qualcomm'south way of distinguishing itself from the A14 Bionic that powers Apple tree's latest phones or the Kirin silicon Huawei uses in its phones. Qualcomm doesn't mention whatsoever of its chip-making rivals by proper noun. Simply the fashion it'due south presenting the Snapdragon 888 speaks volumes almost the experiences it thinks phones powered past the new scrap can provide.

Here'due south what you can expect from the Snapdragon 888 and when the new organisation-on-chip will outset appearing in smartphones.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 888: Availability

Qualcomm says its Snapdragon 888 chipset is coming to Android phones in 2021, though it hasn't said exactly when. If past releases are whatsoever indication, though, yous can expect the new scrap to start appearing in leading Android phones during the get-go three months of the new year.

Samsung's next flagship will nigh certainly be one of the first phones to sport a Snapdragon 888, as has been the case for the U.S. versions of all Galaxy Due south releases. That would put the new fleck on rail for the Samsung Milky way S21, which is rumored to exist launching before than usual — mayhap as soon every bit January.

Galaxy S21 renders (Image credit: Lets Go Digital)

Merely Samsung will accept company. At Qualcomm'south annual tech top where the Snapdragon 888 was introduced, Xiaomi said its Mi 11 phone volition be one of the first to get Qualcomm's latest chip, though that phone is unlikely to e'er reach the U.S.

Qualcomm doesn't brand announcements most which devices utilize its silicon, but the chip maker did provide a list of phone makers who've pledge to support the Snapdragon 888. Beside Xiaomi, that listing includes Asus, Blackness Shark, Lenovo, LG, MEIZU, Motorola, Nubia, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo, Sharp, Vivo and ZTE.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 888: Performance

Performance may not be one of the major talking points around the Snapdragon 888'southward launch, but you lot should still expect large gains for the devices that use the chipset next yr. Equally noted in a higher place, this is Qualcomm's first chip using a 5nm process, and that typically means greater power and efficiency.

Qualcomm's too come up up with a new architecture for the chip, which will offer the first commercial CPU subsystem to be based on the Arm Cortex-X1. In improver to that prime CPU, which can top out at up to two.84GHz, three Arm Cortex A-78 CPUs make upward the performance cores, while iv Arm Cortex-A55 contain the efficiency cores.

In terms of functioning numbers, Qualcomm says that the Kryo 680 in the Snapdragon 888 tin can evangelize a 25% boost in overall CPU functioning over the previous generation. The new CPU is 25% more power efficient than its predecessor, according to Qualcomm.

We'll need to criterion a device powered past the Snapdragon 888 to come across how that compares to electric current phones on the marketplace. But a back-of-the-envelope adding suggests that the bit will deliver a 25% boost over the Geekbench scores of some of the fastest Snapdragon 865-based phones we've tested. And that would pull it but almost even with Apple tree's pace-setting A14-powered iPhone 12 lineup.

Qualcomm would counter that its chips are designed for sustained functioning and not the short bursts that tin propel phones to the lead of benchmark tests — a not so subtle dig at Apple's processors.

"Snapdragon is constructed for sustainable, usable operation," said Ziad Asghar, a vice president of product management at Qualcomm, during the Snapdragon 888 unveiling. We're looking forrard to getting our hands on a Snapdragon 888 device to see if reality matches our math.

As for graphics, the Adreno 660 GPU included with the Snapdragon 888 is supposed to increase the speed of graphics rendering past 35% over last year's chip, with power efficiency improving by 20%. The operation gain is the biggest yet for the Adreno GPU, Qualcomm says, which bodes well for gaming on Snapdragon 888 phones.

Enhancement to the GPU too impact how graphics are displayed, with Qualcomm promising OLED display uniformity too as picture quality improvements.

Snapdragon 888: 5G

5G continues to exist a major focus of Qualcomm, so you tin can bet that it's a fundamental part of the Snapdragon 888 story. The new system-on-fleck includes an integrated modem, much like terminal year's Snapdragon 765G. Only this time, the modem is Qualcomm'southward 3rd generation Snapdragon X60 modem, which supports both sub-6GHz carrier assemblage and mmWave. That means a Snapdragon 888-powered phone volition work with simply about whatever operator'due south 5G network, including those that use dynamic spectrum sharing to extend 5G connectivity.

You should enjoy fast data speeds with the Snapdragon 888, at least where high-speed connectivity is bachelor. The X60 is capable of 7.5 Gbps speeds. No 5G network is even close to delivering that right now, merely it's nice to know that in that location's plenty of headroom for your phone'due south 5G performance as networks get faster.

One of the more than intriguing parts of the Snapdragon 888's 5G support is the fact that it supports Global 5G multi-SIM, pregnant you can await 5G to extend to international roaming — at least if we're ever able to get out our houses again. 5G multi-SIM support also means that yous tin can have separate numbers on the same telephone.

Snapdragon 888: Camera features

Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets ability photographic features, also, and the enhancements introduced to the Spectra 580 image signal processor (Isp) are particularly noteworthy.

For the offset time, Qualcomm's offering a triple Internet access provider that can capture images from 3 cameras at the aforementioned time; on previous Snapdragon Series 8 chipsets, Qualcomm had used a dual Isp.

The switch to a triple ISP ways existence able to simultaneous snap a trio of 28MP shots, all from different points of view. Or yous could capture three 4K videos all one time for a broad shot, a close up and a shot of the person doing the filming from the front photographic camera. Thanks to triple concurrency, all cameras can run in the background at the same time, so that yous can seamlessly switch betwixt lenses without a noticeable lag.

The Spectra Internet service provider is getting a speed boost of its own with the Snapdragon 888. Qualcomm promises speeds of 2.7 gigapixels per second, which is 35% faster than the Snapdragon 865's ISP. In i second, you'll exist able to capture a burst of 120 photos.

In some other first for Qualcomm's chips, the Snapdragon 888 can capture photos in ten-scrap HDR HEIF. That allows cameras powered by the Spectra ISP to capture photos in more than one billion shades of colour, enabling stop-to-end ten-fleck capture and display. Previously, the Snapdragon viii Series' ISP could support 4K still epitome capture, and at present that's beingness extended to video capture with the Snapdragon 888.

Cameras on Snapdragon 888 phones should also be more adept when the lights are turned low, as the chipset introduces a new low-low-cal architecture. That should allow the photographic camera to work in 0.1 lux, which a Qualcomm rep described as virtually darkness.

Snapdragon 888: Gaming

More than people are playing mobile games, and Qualcomm's responded by ramping upward the Snapdragon Elite Gaming features it includes with its high-end processors. That'due south Qualcomm's push to bring desktop-quality gaming to mobile, and in the past information technology'south introduced capabilities such as desktop forward rendering for improved lighting and updateable GPU drivers.

In addition to supporting ultra smooth gaming capable of delivering gameplay at 144 frames per second, the Snapdragon 888 besides adds variable rate shading for improved game rendering. That's a commencement for mobile devices, according to Qualcomm, and when information technology's implemented by game makers, information technology should boost gameplay performance by 30%. That means games will run smoother and longer without taxing your telephone's bombardment every bit much.

Most games on your smartphone rely on a touchscreen interface to control the activity, so Qualcomm is introducing a way to brand your touches count. The company'southward Game Quick Bear on feature can amend responsiveness by up to 20% in games running at 60 frames per second; in 120 fps games, response tims are cut by ten%.

Snapdragon 888: Artificial intelligence

In addition to all the other components on a Snapdragon 8 serial chipset, you lot'll also find an AI engine that impacts multiple tasks across a smartphone. The Snapdragon 888 introduces a new 6th-generation AI Engine along with a Hexagon 780 processor that'south more efficient and powerful than previous versions.

Many of the improvements to the Snapdragon 888's AI engine tin can exist traced to a new architecture Qualcomm is using. The Tensor, Scalar and Vector AI accelerators have been fused in this version, allowing them to piece of work together as ane unit so they tin can share memory for faster performance.

That promises a number of benefits for AI-powered features. The Tensor Accelerator's Compute capacity has doubled, while the Scalar Accelerator is 50% more powerful. Qualcomm says you can expect up to a 3x performance per watt improvement from its last mobile processing platform, with the AI engine able to perform 26 tera operations per 2d (TOPS). For context, the Snapdragon 865 provided 15 TOPS, which was pretty impressive when it was introduced a yr ago.

All of this translates to a more responsive device when it comes to working with the camera, voice assistant and whatever other part of the phone where responsiveness is cardinal. The AI engine on the Snapdragon 888 can provide capabilities similar racket suppression when y'all're on a phone phone call to cancel out ambient noise effectually you lot or AI-based upscaling on videos and then that you can watch them at enhanced resolutions.

Last year's top-of-the-line Snapdragon chipset included a Qualcomm Sensing Hub to help with activities such every bit screen awake, lift and activity detection, and audio prompts. The Snapdragon 888 introduces the second generation version of that hub, with its own dedicated AI processor. That makes the revised Qualcomm Sensing Hub fifty-fifty more than contextually aware of its surround.

A demo that Qualcomm showed off at its tech summit illustrated how the sensing hub could discover where yous parked your car in a multi-level garage, all without any user input. The sensing hub can also detect dissimilar sounds like a baby crying and respond with an advisable notification.

Snapdragon 888: Other features

We've talked about 5G, but that's only function of the Snapdragon 888's connectivity capabilities. This is a Wi-Fi six-enabled device, as you might expect, so it volition connect efficiently to Wi-Fi 6-prepare networking gear. The Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 mobile connectivity system can support wireless speeds of up to 3.6 Gbps.

On the security front, the Snapdragon 888 supports features such every bit a hypervisor that can chop-chop switch betwixt isolated OSes on your phone. (Call up setting upwards piece of work and personal profiles on phones that keep apps and other data localized to specific profiles.) This is besides the first Content Actuality Initiative-compliant smartphone camera for capturing cryptographically-sealed photos.

Possibly one of the more noteworthy enhancements brought about with the Snapdragon 888 is Qualcomm's QuickCharge five technology. It's capable of supporting up to 100W chargers, with the promise of providing a 50% charge to a phone in five minutes. Even if your hereafter telephone doesn't recharge at that blistering speed, faster charging looks to be on the horizon with Snapdragon 888-powered devices that utilise the latest version of QuickCharge.

Snapdragon 888: Outlook

While all those features requite us an overview of what the Snapdragon 888 brings to the table, we're going to have to look for a device powered by the new chip to fully appreciate its capabilities. Certainly, getting to exam a Snapdragon 888-powered phone will let united states of america compare Qualcomm's latest to the chips powering Apple's new phones.

But there's a lot to anticipate most the Snapdragon 888 beyond just speed improvements. The new camera capabilities in detail promise to push mobile photography frontward, and the gaming features volition farther cement the smartphone'due south place as a device for serious gamers. Qualcomm has introduced a lot of key enhancements with the Snapdragon 888, and we're looking frontwards to see how that translates to new mobile experiences.

Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom'southward Guide. He has stiff opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics and sometime movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.