A few hours ago, the new and highly anticipated Snapdragon 855 processor was unveiled to the world . That might sound like a bit of a gimmick, so let's try to avoid technical jargon (as much as possible, of course) and take a closer look at the advantages you'll actually notice in next year's phones.
Snapdragon 855: the era of 5G is here
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 processor arrives to take the baton from the Snapdragon 845, currently found in numerous high-end phones on the market. The new chipset boasts support for 5G connectivity —yes, that technology we've been talking about for years and which finally seems to be arriving for real—as well as other features that will improve the user experience.
Regarding the much-discussed 5G, it's worth noting that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 is the world's first commercially available mobile platform to offer it. It uses a proprietary modem , the Snapdragon X50, paired with antennas called Qualcomm QTM052 mmWave (yes, also from the American company). These antennas point with considerable accuracy to the nearest 5G source, thanks to Qualcomm's own algorithms, and are capable of bouncing signals off surrounding surfaces.
5G, as you might imagine, is the successor to the 4G you currently have on your phone. This means your connections will be even faster and with less lag. Imagine playing online games on your smartphone with virtually no latency or holding video conferences over your mobile data without any interruptions. 5G also promises to use less battery power than 4G.
Advantages of the Snapdragon 855 over the Snapdragon 845
As for the rest of its qualities, its new features will give you an improved experience when using the phone, enjoying better performance (more speed and smoothness, if possible, in its handling) as well as superior graphics , which you will especially appreciate when playing games - note that this is combined with the Snapdragon Elite Gaming, a set of features designed to improve the gaming experience, of which we do not have more details at the moment.
You have the complete presentation on these lines. Jump to 11:27 to start watching.
All these results are given, in large part, thanks to the 8 cores that the processor mounts, four of them at a clock speed of 1,78 GHz; the next three at 2,42 GHz and one at 2,84 GHz. The graphic improvement comes at the hands of an Adreno 640 graphics processor.
Artificial intelligence also gets a boost here . As you know, AI is commonplace in high-end phones and is a key element in a device's performance. The Snapdragon 855 comes with the company's fourth-generation AI Engine, which promises three times the performance of the Snapdragon 845.
The chipset, which by the way has been developed under a 7nm process (like Huawei's Kirin 980 and Apple's A12 Bionic), will also allow you to enjoy new features when taking photos and videos, thanks to the integration of a unit called the Computer Vision Image Signal Processor (CV-ISP).
https://youtu.be/Nev55ymBJGo
The in-display fingerprint reader is starting to appear in high-end phones and will continue to be a feature in 2019. Needless to say, the Snapdragon 855 supports it, with the introduction of the new Qualcomm 3D Sonic sensor. This sensor works using ultrasonic waves—that always sounds futuristic, doesn't it?—instead of light, promising that phones with this processor will have a more secure and accurate fingerprint reader.
Qualcomm could still reveal more details about its processor during these conference days—the platform was unveiled at the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2018 , held annually in Hawaii. If so, we'll let you know right here, don't worry.