Qualcomm finally gives first look at Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 765 platforms

Qualcomm has finally taken the wraps off of the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 765 platforms at its annual Snapdragon Summit, which the company flew me out to. While full details about the platforms have yet to be revealed, the new chipsets will power the next generation of flagship and premium smartphones.

The Snapdragon 865 in particular is set to be Qualcomm’s most powerful mobile platform to date, replacing the previous-generation Snapdragon 855 that can be found in phones like the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Google Pixel 4. As such, we’re expecting that the new platform will appear in devices like the Galaxy S11, the Pixel 5, and so on. Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi announced at the summit that the Mi 10, the follow up to the impressive Mi 9, will indeed have the Snapdragon 865 chipset.

The Snapdragon 865 also places an emphases on 5G connectivity, and features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 5G modem. That’s good news for the future of 5G. It’s expected that many more manufacturers will start releasing 5G-capable phones in the next year or so, while carriers will continue to roll out their 5G networks that the phones can make use of. While the rollout of 5G will take at least a few years to truly be available around the country, 2020 may end up being the year that it becomes widely available. Even Apple is likely to adopt 5G in 2020 — so it’s good to see that it’ll be more widely available as part of these new chipsets.

The new Snapdragon 765 likely won’t be available in quite as many devices as the Snapdragon 865, but it will be available in a few slightly cheaper phones at least. In general, 700-series chips  feature slightly less powerful specs than 800-series platform specs, but they still offer a range of premium features focused on A.I., and in this case, 5G.

Alongside the Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 765, Qualcomm also announced a new version of its in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. The new sensor offers a 17x-larger scanning area than previous-generation sensors, meaning that it can scan multiple fingers at once. The result? It’s a whole lot more secure than previous-generation in-display fingerprint sensors. According to Qualcomm, the sensor is also faster and easier to use — though it’s currently unclear how much faster it is or why it’s easier to use.

More details about the Snapdragon 865 and the Snapdragon 765 are likely to be released over the next few days, so stay tuned.