Qualcomm has officially announced its new flagship processor, the Snapdragon 888, the chipset that will power a large portion of next year's high-end Android phones.
The most important change we'll see in the Snapdragon 888 is that the 5G modem is integrated. This year's Snapdragon 865 has a modem as a separate part. This results in an extra component a manufacturer has to buy, design, and power. As a result, we're expecting to see Snapdragon 888 devices to be more battery efficient.
This is a big win, as we've seen 5G connectivity hamper the battery life on high-end Android smartphones like the OPPO Find X2 Pro this year. 5G will still be more demanding than 4G, but midrange 5G smartphones - like the Pixel 5 - with a modem integrated directly into their chipset have fared better when it comes to longevity in our testing.
The Snapdragon 888 also jumps to a 5nm process, which should also help with power efficiency. In addition, the processor should also help with photography. Qualcomm says the 888's image signal processor can capture photos at 2.7 gigapixels a second, which is 35% than the 865.
We're expecting to see Snapdragon 888 powered smartphones from manufacturers including OPPO, LG, Motorola, Realme, and Vivo next year. All the manufacturers have committed to building handsets featuring Qualcomm's latest chipset, but it is unclear whether all of them will make it to Australia.
Samsung uses Qualcomm processors in select phones, but the majority of its Australian models are powered by its own in-house chipsets.
Alex Choros
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