Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 Plus brings a performance boost to flagship phones

By Christian de Looper July 15, 2019

Qualcomm wants to take the Snapdragon 855 to the next level before it presumably unveils a newer chip at the end of the year. The company has taken the wraps off of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus, which is aimed at acting as a modest upgrade to the original Snapdragon 855. According to Qualcomm, the new, slightly more powerful chip is aimed at delivering 5G, mixed reality, and artificial intelligence, along with a better mobile gaming experience.

The chipset brings a few performance tweaks to the Snapdragon 855, and will likely appear in upcoming flagship phones that get released between now and December, which is when Qualcomm traditionally has released its flagship chipsets.

Recommended Videos

So what’s new? Well, while the original Snapdragon 855 offered a Kryo 485 CPU with a clock speed of 2.84GHz, the Snapdragon 855 Plus steps things up to a so-called Kryo 485 Prime CPU, which offers a clock speed of 2.96GHz. The Snapdragon 855 Plus also features an Adreno 640 GPU that Qualcomm says has been tuned to offer a 15% performance increase over the Adreno 640 in the original Snapdragon 855.

“Snapdragon 855 Plus will raise the bar for elite gamers with the increase in CPU and GPU performance and elevate experiences for 5G, gaming, A.I., and XR, which is something our OEM customers look to us to deliver,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president of product management at Qualcomm, in a statement.

This isn’t the first time Qualcomm has released a small upgrade to a chip before the launch of a new flagship. The company released the Snapdragon 821 in July 2016, which served as a small upgrade to the Snapdragon 820. The Snapdragon 821 offered a 10% performance increase over the Snapdragon 820, but otherwise offered similar features. A few phones were released with the Snapdragon 821, including the original Google Pixel, the LG G6, and the HTC U Ultra.

According to Qualcomm, phones with the Snapdragon 855 Plus are expected to ship in the second half of 2019, meaning that phones like the Google Pixel 4 may well ship with the new chip. Even the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 may feature the Snapdragon 855 Plus, though given the Galaxy Note 10 is expected to be released on August 7, it may still offer the original Snapdragon 855.

Topics

Christian de Looper

Contributor

Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…

Mobile

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 and 4 Gen 1 chips are big deals for cheap phones

qualcomm snapdragon 6 gen 1 4 news new chips

Following in the footsteps of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Qualcomm has today introduced two low-end mobile processors that add the “Gen” naming mantra to the Snapdragon 400 and 600 series. Alongside a few notable upgrades in the camera and connectivity departments, Qualcomm's latest chips have a lot going for them.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 1
First in line is the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1, which takes over the mid-tier reins from the Snapdragon 695. Interestingly, this chip is based on the 4nm fabrication process, making it one of the first non-flagship mobile processors to rely on the 4nm die that offers better performance and higher energy efficiency. In comparison, Apple’s A15 Bionic inside the iPhone 13 series is based on TSMC’s 5nm process.

Qualcomm claims that the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 is the first chip in the series to bring computational HDR video capture chops to the table. It’s also the first in the family to get the new 7th Gen AI engine that brings a 3x performance uptake for AI and ML-based tasks. Motorola is among the first brands to embrace the new Qualcomm chip, while phones powered by it will hit the shelves early next year.

Mobile

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 flagship chip is coming this November

1290537 autosave v1 2 qualcomm snapdragon 845

Qualcomm has announced the dates for the Snapdragon Summit 2022. As rumored, the event will take place earlier than its usual timeline in November. It will run from November 15 to November 17. At the Summit, Qualcomm will showcase its latest and greatest innovations for the year ahead, along with its flagship chipset. Last year, it was the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset that made headlines with the new naming scheme. As such, it's likely that Qualcomm will follow the line to name the next processor as Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

The tech giant revealed the information on its official website with a brief clip. The video proclaims that its viewers should get ready for the next wave of tech at Qualcomm’s biggest showcase of the year. COVID-19 didn’t allow for in-person events in 2020, but just like last year, the Snapdragon Summit is returning to Hawaii for 2022. While we don’t have the lineup of the products expected at the event, it’s certain that we will see the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

Mobile

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 chip might actually save Android smartwatches

The Mobvoi TicWatch 3 Pro on someone's wrist.

Qualcomm has a new wearable chip for smartwatches. Actually, there are two of them. They're the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 and W5+ Gen 1, and Qualcomm thinks they're the next big revolution in smartwatch chipsets.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. The Snapdragon Wear 3100 from 2018 was also supposed to supercharge Wear OS watches and take them to the next level. But beyond some fairly modest battery improvements, performance on the Wear 3100 left a lot to be desired. And 2020's Wear 4100 and Wear 4100+ chips weren't much better. Qualcomm again made some battery improvements and performance gains, but seldom few smartwatches actually adopted the 4100 platform. A handful of watches from Mobvoi and Fossil use a 4100-series chip, and that's about it. Samsung's Galaxy Watch lineup is using Exynos chips, and rumors even suggest Google's Pixel Watch will do the same.