Here’s what’s new on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 platform

Yesterday, Qualcomm had officially introduced its latest mobile platform, the Snapdragon 845. This will be powering the next generation of flagship smartphones and even 2-in-1 convertibles starting next year.

Upgrading over the current Snapdragon 835, the new mobile chip promises to offer up to 25% better performance while having up to 30% power reduction compared to the previous generation. The Snapdragon 845 uses a newer Kryo 385 CPU that comes with 8 cores (4x high performance + 4x efficiency) that can be clocked up to 2.8GHz. Similar to the previous version, it’s based on Samsung’s 10nm process. Graphic performance are up to 30% faster with its newer Adreno 630 GPU.

In the imaging department, it uses an upgraded Qualcomm Spectra 280 ISP which can capture 64x more high-dynamic range colour for both video capture and playback. This would also enable 4K Ultra HD video recording at a higher 60fps in HDR10. The ISP is also capable of doing 16MP burst shots at 60fps and HD 720p slow-mo at 480fps.

Connectivity-wise, the new platform uses Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X20 LTE modem which offers faster speeds than their current X16 LTE solution. It supports LTE Cat 18 downloads which could deliver peak speeds as high as 1.2Gbps via 5x20MHz carrier aggregation. It also supports 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM.

Also supported is Dual-SIM-Dual VoLTE which enables two SIM cards to stay connected on 4G with HD voice at the same time. It also supports 802.11ad WiFi for multi-gigabit connectivity of up to 4.6Gbps as well as Bluetooth 5.0 which enables simultaneous audio streams to multiple devices.

With more device makers pushing for AI integration, the new platform is said to be capable of delivering 3X improvement in overall AI performance compared to its previous SoC. You can expect improved performance for voice assistants, AI-enhanced photography and VR while keeping power consumption low.

For better security, Qualcomm introduces a new SPU (Secure Processing Unit) which keeps your biometric data such as fingerprints, voice, eyes and facial data safe. As usual, the new Snapdragon 845 platform also supports Quick Charge 4+. This is rated to give you up to 50% charge in just 15 minutes.

Apart from smartphones and tablets, Qualcomm is pushing the new platform to power even more devices including XR (eXtended reality) and always connected PCs. Expect Snapdragon 845 powered devices to be commercially available starting early next year. This would include Samsung’s Galaxy S9 (for the US market) and Xiaomi’s upcoming Mi 7 flagship. You can learn more about the Snapdragon 845 platform over here.