At Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm is already dropping the idea of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, fueling rumors of a very early arrival of the next high-end chip.
For the past few weeks, rumors have been rife around the idea of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip which would arrive sooner than expected to succeed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 of the OnePlus 11, Xiaomi 13 or Galaxy S23 Ultra.
In the idea, Qualcomm might even do without the expected Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 for the end of the year and directly launch its 3rd generation of Snapdragon 8 chip.
Snapdragon Satellite for 8 Gen 2 and Gen 3
During a round table dedicated to Snapdragon Satellite technology, much more interesting on paper than Apple’s technology, a Qualcomm representative mentioned the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 several times. The idea being that the technology will first be offered on premium smartphones equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Gen 3 before generalizing to more accessible products.
If we follow Qualcomm’s reasoning, this suggests that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2+ would never see the light of day, in favor of a faster transition to Gen 3. If this were true, the firm might present this new chip from the start of the school year to equip premium end-of-year smartphones. A way for Qualcomm to continue to increase performance when the iPhone 15 arrives.
Qualcomm has promised to start marketing the first Snapdragon Satellite smartphones for the month of September. We can therefore expect a great end to the year with a performance boost for smartphones, but also very attractive features. Given the new closeness between Samsung and Qualcomm, might the next-gen Galaxy Z Fold and Flip take the leap? It is far too early to tell.
Our journalist Cassim Ketfi is in Barcelona to cover MWC 2023 in its entirety, but he is present there as part of a press trip organized by Qualcomm.
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