The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 mobile processor hasn't even been used in phones for a whole year, and yet, a new chip is already poised to make an appearance later this year: the Snapdragon 821.
Interestingly, in spite of the Snapdragon 821 boasting several advantages over the flagship 820, such as a 10 percent performance increase, Qualcomm says it's not designed to be a successor — great news for those who are eyeing the Samsung Galaxy S7 or the HTC 10 and are worrying about suddenly buying a new product with an "inferior" mobile processor.
So, what is the point of the 821, then? According to Qualcomm, the new chip, with its 2.4 GHz Kyro quad-core CPU, is designed to be an addition to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800-series lineup in the company's bid to retain its dominant position in the mobile chip market now that Intel has left. If anything, this move could be seen as something similar to the 800 and 801, where both are cut from the same cloth, but one offers a few upgrades over the other, yet are still sold alongside each other.
Beyond CPU and performance advantages, there are a few other things we know about the 821. For starters, it will boast minor graphics improvements, allowing smartphones equipped with this chip to better handle Google's DayDream mobile platform. In addition, it can process 4K video in smartphones to show on external displays, as well as posses an integrated modem to provide download speeds of up to 600 Mbps.
As an added bonus, especially to those who have had a hard time playing a certain massively-popular mobile game, the Snapdragon 821 is more power-efficient, meaning batteries in smartphones and their tablets will last longer — and in their case, allow them to play their favorite mobile game while on the GO without fear of their batteries dying.
This is all the information Qualcomm provided in its announcement, promising to share more details at a later date. Even without that information, however, there are still a couple of things we can assume about the latest chip. One is that the new chip will support LPDDR4 memory and Windows 10 Mobile, as they both work with Snapdragon 820. In a similar vein, support for Google's Tango AR platform will be present on the 821, since it was recently added to the 820.
Devices powered by the Snapdragon 821 are expected to show up on the market later this year.
