Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus revealed — what phones will it power?

Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus revealed — what phones volition it power?

(Image credit: Qualcomm)

The chip that will ability loftier-cease Android phones in the second one-half of the year is making its debut at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this calendar week. And Qualcomm is promising a arrangement-on-chip that'south a lot smarter than its predecessor.

The Snapdragon 888 Plus, shown off at a Qualcomm keynote today (June 28) , improves the hardware and optimizes the software for the Hexagon 780 processor that powers Qualcomm's 6th generation AI engine. The event is that this flake can produce 32 trillion operations per second (TOPS) — a 20% increase over the TOPS performance of the Snapdragon 888 chipset released last December.

All-time 5G phones right now
Find the best unlocked Android phones
Plus: I used the OnePlus 9 for 3 months — and it inverse my mind

The Kryo CPU on the Snapdragon 888 Plus system-on-chip gets a boost, too, with Qualcomm increasing the speed of the prime core to 3GHz; it was ii.84GHz on the Snapdragon 888. That should interpret to improved app response fourth dimension and browser operation, amidst other benefits.

Otherwise, the capabilities of the Snapdragon 888 Plus match what Qualcomm delivered with the Snapdragon 888, including 5G connectivity, Snapdragon Elite Gaming features that aim to bring panel gaming to mobile and a Spectra 580 triple Internet access provider capable of capturing from up to three lenses simultaneously. Like the Snapdragon 888 earlier it, the 888 Plus volition be the silicon of choice for the all-time Android phones coming out the rest of 2021.

Specifically, Qualcomm expects phones powered by the Snapdragon 888 Plus to offset appearing during the tertiary quarter of the year. That timing fits in well with the rumored August unveiling of Samsung'due south latest foldable phones. Both the Samsung Milky way Z Fold iii and Galaxy Z Flip 3 are expected to launch in August, and past versions of those phones have also been powered by the best version of Qualcomm silicon available at the fourth dimension of their release.

The aforementioned can be said for OnePlus' second-half flagship phone this twelvemonth, which is rumored to be called the OnePlus 9T. While last year's OnePlus 8T stuck with the aforementioned Snapdragon 865 system-on-chip found in other OnePlus 8 phones, the OnePlus 7T released the previous year did upgrade to a Snapdragon 855 Plus from the Snapdragon 855 chipsets in the OnePlus 7 phones.

Typically, the T model of OnePlus' flagship phones comes six months afterward the phone maker's last flagship handsets came out. The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus nine Pro both debuted in March.

Of class, neither Samsung nor OnePlus were amid the telephone makers pledging support for the Snapdragon 888 Plus during Qualcomm's announcement today. While the flake maker doesn't denote which unreleased phones are using its upcoming silicon, it did include testimonials about the Snapdragon 888 Plus from Motorola, Asus' ROG division, Vivo, Xiaomi and Honor.

Qualcomm and 5G

The inflow of the Snapdragon 888 Plus covered simply a flake of the news in Qualcomm's keynote, with the chip maker also using the spotlight of Mobile World Congress to tout the growth of millimeter moving ridge 5G. That's the high-speed version of 5G that delivers operation that's much faster than LTE. Thus far, mmWave has been primarily implemented in the U.South., where it's a big role of Verizon 5G.

That's irresolute, according to Qualcomm, which says that 40-plus global operators and device makers around the earth are committed to supporting mmWave 5G. (AT&T, U.s. Cellular and Motorola were among the U.S. firms cited by Qualcomm.) There are currently more than than 120 devices that support mmWave 5G, with nearly all of them powered past Snapdragon.

And the speeds should figure to increase. Qualcomm says that its upcoming Snapdragon X65 modem, due out subsequently this year, tin at present summit 10 Gbps in over-the-air testing. While Qualcomm probable hit that figure in platonic weather, it even so suggests that faster speeds are ahead as 5G continues to curlicue out.

5G speed: 5G vs. 4G performance compared

Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom'southward Guide. He has strong opinions about Apple tree, the Oakland Athletics and erstwhile movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.