As we hurtle towards 2019, Qualcomm has been busy introducing the world to its latest products that are likely to drive next year’s biggest trends. At the first…
As we hurtle towards 2019, Qualcomm has been busy introducing the world to its latest products that are likely to drive next year’s biggest trends. At the first keynote of its three-day Tech Summit in Hawaii yesterday, the company already previewed some of the features of its next premium mobile processor — the Snapdragon 855. Today, we’re getting a deeper dive into the nitty gritty details of the new chipset.
To be clear, there are a lot of highlights here. This is the first mobile processor to support multi-gigabit 5G, and is one of the first chips built on 7-nanometer architecture. The Snapdragon 855 also features (among other things) advances in AI processing and graphics prowess — let’s take a closer look.
For all of Qualcomm’s talk abut 5G, the 855 is fascinating because it mainly relies on a new, built-in X24 LTE modem, not the Snapdragon X50 5G modem we’ve heard so much about lately. The X50 enables millimeter wave (mmWave) support for transfers over recently opened mmWave frequency bands, which can provide up to 20 times faster average performance than what you’d get on today’s phones and networks. The thing is, device makers will ultimately decide whether or not they want to offer hardware with 5G-enabled 855 chipsets — just buying an 855-powered phone doesn’t mean you’ll get access to those crazy data speeds.
Regardless of your 5G situation, you still might see some important data speed improvements. The Snapdragon 855 will also support WiFi 6 (also known as 802.11ax), which promises to bring about increased throughput and faster speeds. Qualcomm’s using features like 8×8 sounding to serve more devices more efficiently, and promises up to two times improvement over 4×4 sounding. The new CPU will also support mmWave WiFi via Qualcomm’s 60 GHz platform, an industry-first 802.11ay-based offering that can boost speeds up to 10 Gbps.
Wireless earbuds also get an upgrade, thanks to improved support for Qualcomm’s TrueWireless Stereo Plus technology that’s supposed to optimize for low latency between left and right earbuds and improve energy efficiency for longer battery life.
