Snapdragon
Qualcomm this morning is taking the wraps off a pair of new SoCs for the mid-range and entry-level smartphone markets. Refreshing the company’s longstanding 600 and 400 series of chips, Qualcomm is announcing the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 1. Both SoCs are receiving similar spec bumps, incorporating newer and faster IP blocks from Qualcomm – such as Arm Cortex-A78 derived CPU cores – as well as moving to newer, more contemporary manufacturing processes. The Snapdragon 600/400 lineups were last updated in mid and early 2021 respectively, so as Qualcomm is already preparing for 2023, the time has finally come to update the bottom half of their product stack. Following Qualcomm’s broad cascading IP strategy, this generation of parts sees both SoC...
Hands On With the Huawei Honor 5X
We’ve reviewed Huawei Honor devices before, but by and large they were designed to target China and similar markets. There were also a number of growing pains as seen...
14 by Joshua Ho on 1/6/2016Qualcomm renames Snapdragon 618,620 to 650,652
Earlier in the year we were able to cover Qualcomm's announcement of the Snapdragon 618 and 620 mid-range SoCs. We haven't heard much about the SoCs since the original...
21 by Andrei Frumusanu on 12/17/2015The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Performance Preview: Meet Kryo
I don’t think there’s any way to sugarcoat this, but 2015 has not been a particularly great year for Qualcomm in the high-end SoC business. The company remains a...
146 by Ryan Smith & Andrei Frumusanu on 12/10/2015Qualcomm Details Hexagon 680 DSP in Snapdragon 820: Accelerated Imaging
Although we tend not to focus too much on the tertiary aspects of a SoC, they are often important to enabling many aspects of the user experience. DSPs are...
41 by Joshua Ho on 8/24/2015Understanding Qualcomm's ImproveTouch
Although the Xperia Z4 Tablet was announced as far back as MWC, it wasn’t until recently that the enhanced noise rejection of the touchscreen was really shown off. At...
13 by Joshua Ho on 8/18/2015Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon Sense ID Fingerprint Scanning
In addition to a new SoC, Qualcomm is announcing a new fingerprint sensing technology for Snapdragon-based devices. While most fingerprint sensors currently use high-resolution capacitive sensors, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sense ID...
7 by Joshua Ho on 3/2/2015Qualcomm Announces New SoC Lineup, Modem Branding
Qualcomm today announced 4 new additions to its Snapdragon 400 and 600 lineup of SoCs, along with a reshuffle and rebranding of their modem lineup. Let's begin with the...
40 by Andrei Frumusanu on 2/18/2015Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 Performance Preview
Last year Qualcomm announced a new tier in its high end SoC roadmap with the Snapdragon 805. Priced somewhat above the current Snapdragon 800/801, the 805 would be the...
149 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/21/2014Qualcomm's Snapdragon 808/810: 20nm High-End 64-bit SoCs with LTE Category 6/7 Support in 2015
Today Qualcomm is rounding out its 64-bit family with the Snapdragon 808 and 810. Like the previous 64-bit announcements (Snapdragon 410, 610 and 615), the 808 and 810 leverage...
101 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 4/7/2014Sony Launches Xperia Z2, Z2 Tablet, and M2 at MWC 2014
Sony Xperia Z2 Sony has just announced the Xperia Z2, which is the direct successor to the Xperia Z1 that released in the fall. While quite a bit stays the...
23 by Joshua Ho on 2/24/2014Nexus 7 (2013) - Mini Review
At an event in San Francisco, Google announced an updated version of the popular Nexus 7 tablet which first appeared at last year’s Google I/O. The big new features...
253 by Brian Klug on 7/27/2013Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 200 Additions - MSM8x10 and MSM8x12
Last week, Qualcomm announced two new members of the Snapdragon 200 tier. As a reminder, Qualcomm has moved to a tiered structure split between 200, 400, 600, and 800...
11 by Brian Klug on 6/24/2013Qualcomm Announces MSM8926 - Snapdragon 400 with Quad Core A7s and Cat 4 LTE
Quite a long time ago, Qualcomm announced MSM8x26, a midrange Snapdragon 400 class SoC built on a 28nm LP process consisting of four ARM Cortex A7 CPUs running at...
4 by Brian Klug on 6/3/2013Exploring the Floating Point Performance of Modern ARM Processors
As a programmer who wants to write decent performing code, I am very interested in understanding the architectures of CPUs and GPUs. However, unlike desktop and server CPUs, mobile...
39 by Rahul Garg on 6/2/2013Quick Look: Pantech's Discover Android Smartphone
My weirdest meeting was probably with Pantech, who I met with in the Convention Center main concourse and seemed to not have an official presence at CES. Pantech’s main...
3 by Vivek Gowri on 1/12/2013Qualcomm and DTS Team-up For Mobile Surround Solution
Qualcomm’s already made waves here at CEs with their announcement of the new Snapdragon line-up, and to emphasize the point that Snapdragon 800 is more than just Krait 400...
3 by Jason Inofuentes on 1/9/2013Qualcomm's Next-Gen Krait 400 & Krait 300 Announced in Snapdragon 800 & 600 SoCs
We've been hinting at this for a while, both on the Podcast and in our most recent power analysis piece, but today it's very official: Qualcomm is announcing the...
22 by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on 1/7/2013Qualcomm Announces S4 Play MSM8x26 and WTR2605 - Quad Core ARM Cortex A7
Yesterday, Qualcomm announced a new SoC for its Snapdragon S4 Play category, the MSM8x26, and alongside it a new transceiver, WTR2605. The announcement was a little light on detail...
18 by Brian Klug on 12/5/2012HTC Droid DNA Hands-On
Today’s HTC Droid DNA announcement brings a few big advancements over the HTC One X that never made it to Verizon's line-up. We'll start our hands-on discussion with the...
55 by Jason Inofuentes on 11/13/2012Samsung ATIV Line Outed at IFA: Windows 8, RT and Phone 8 Devices Revealed
Samung's still midstride in their IFA presentation, but they've already gone live with their announcements, and if they wanted to move the conversation along from the current news cycle...
9 by Jason Inofuentes on 8/29/2012