Snapdragon 888 is Qualcomm’s Next High-End Chipset (Updated)

The annual Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit is taking place this week and we typically look to this event as the reveal of the next high-end Snapdragon chipset for smartphones and other high-end devices for the upcoming year. Qualcomm, even though they aren’t making the announcement from Hawaii this year, has done just that. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is the chip that’ll power your next flagship smartphone (like the Galaxy S21).

• UPDATE 12/2: The full Snapdragon 888 details are here!

We won’t know all of the details of the chip until day 2 of the Summit where Qualcomm will dive into all the specifics, but they have shared a handful of goods to whet the appetite.

The Snapdragon 888, like the two chips before it, has a big focus on 5G. This particular chip uses the 3rd generation Snapdragon X60 5G modem to give you 5G band access no matter the frequency or country. The 888 supports 5G carrier aggregation, stand alone and non-stand alone 5G, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS). None of that should surprise you.

In photography, the 888 has a faster gigapixel speed Qualcomm Spectra ISP, where you can capture photos and videos at 2.7 gigapixels per second (120 photos at 12MP). That’s a 35% boost over the previous generation Spectra ISP.

Qualcomm is also introducing a 3rd generation Snapdragon Elite Gaming feature-set and an upgraded Adreno GPU with the Snapdragon 888. The chip will be smart too, with a 6th generation Qualcomm AI Engine that’s enhanced by a 2nd generation Qualcomm Sensing Hub.

Again, this is only day 1 of the Summit, so Qualcomm isn’t telling us much. We should have lots of details tomorrow morning, but hey, Snapdragon 888!

Oh, and for those wondering, I have no idea what happened to the Snapdragon 875. We’ve jumped a bit here.

// Qualcomm