While flagship Android phones like the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are still fresh off the production line, tech junkies probably want to know what comes after. Today Qualcomm has revealed that their new processor will hit mass production by the end of May, and will see the light of day in consumer products as early as June.
The new Snapdragon 800 SoC features a 28nm processor that can hit clock rates of up to 2.3 GHz, and similar to its predecessor, the four cores are clocked asynchronously to allow for better power management. Qualcomm has also updated their Adreno 330 GPU to enable a 50 percent increase in graphic performance, but of course since no benchmarks are out yet we'll have to wait and see to verify those claims.
Below are some of the main aspects of the new chip:
Those of you hoping for a bump in the number of cores will be disappointed, as the processor is still "only" four cores, unlike Samsung's 8-core Exynos 5 Octa processor. Nevertheless, Qualcomm claims their upgraded Krait 400 architecture allows for sustained peak performance in a mobile power profile. Combined with support for high performance low profile DDR3 memory, we are likely to see a worthy contender to the likes of Samsung's Exynos 5, Nvidia's Tegra 4 and Apple's A6 / A6X processors.
Some of the key features Qualcomm is highlighting include the ability for 30fps 4K x 2K video playback, and support for a 55 megapixel camera. While we are doubtful major phone manufacturers will begin releasing devices equipped with 55 megapixel sensors any time soon, that's still impressive in its own right.