Items tagged with (NASDAQ:QCOM)
2020 is the year of 5G wireless connectivity for smartphones, and Qualcomm is looking to blanket all sectors with its Snapdragon chipsets. At the high-end, we have the Snapdragon 865 with its separate Snapdragon X55 5G modem. In the "premium" mid-range sector, we have the Snapdragon 765/765G/768G with their integrated Snapdragon X52 modems. Now, Qualcomm is looking to go further down-market to bring 5G connectivity to the masses with the Snapdragon 690 SoC. This isn't just a case of Qualcomm slapping a 5G modem onboard and calling it a day; the company has made some significant changes compared to other 600-Series chips that makes it stand out. For starters, it still features a big.LITTLE...
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OnePlus Z information has been leaking at a rapid clip in recent weeks, and today's latest reveal brings a few of the missing pieces surrounding the launch of the mid-range smartphone. India has emerged as a hotbed of activity in the low-cost smartphone realm, with major smartphone OEMs pouring resources into the country. OnePlus is no exception, and will reportedly launch the OnePlus Z in India on July 10th. According to Android Central's sources, this is a "tentative" date, but barring any major hiccups between now and then, that's likely when we should expect to see what smartphone. One other previously unknown surrounding the OnePlus Z is its price, which will be critical to...
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Always-on, always-connected PCs like the Samsung Galaxy Book S -- the kind of machines that are ready to go first thing in the morning and last all day and night, while never losing an internet connection thanks to cellular connectivity -- are a potential game changer for some users. Manufacturers have tried to make this happen with tablets, but haven't entirely been successful. Half-computers like the iPad Pro may have been "blessed" with $300 keyboards, but iPadOS can be pretty limiting for real work. This seems like a job for full-blown Windows and a proper clamshell, but x86 notebooks don't offer that same level of battery life. So, what are your options? These days, Microsoft would...
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Just when you thought it was safe to upgrade to a Wi-Fi 6 router and complementing wireless devices, here we are with a new wave of Wi-Fi 6E chips that will be launching in new products later this year. For those not in the know, Wi-Fi 6E is a new version of Wi-Fi that leverages 6GHz spectrum that was the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened up for unlicensed use earlier this year. This is perhaps the biggest upgrade that Wi-Fi has seen since it first burst onto the scene in commercial products roughly two decade ago. Devices running on 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E will of course be backwards compatible with existing 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi solutions. Qualcomm is jumping into the Wi-Fi 6E fray with...
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For better or worse, COVID-19 has changed our way of life and how we do business – perhaps permanently. For school-age children and the American workforce, that has meant “telecommuting” or working from home instead of alongside peers in the office. Online collaborative platforms like Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams have helped to facilitate the physical divide between people, but Qualcomm is pushing for even more advanced collaborative tools through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences, aka extended reality (XR). Qualcomm is touting its XR Optimized Certification Program, which allows its OEM partners to develop XR viewer glasses that can give...
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Flagship SoCs like Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865 might get all the attention due to their extreme performance and high-end features, but the mid-range is often were most of the action (and sales) take place. It's for this reason that Qualcomm is delivering a performance boost for its OEM customers with the arrival of the new Snapdragon 768G. This is yet another variant of the Snapdragon 765, which was first announced back in early December. The Snapdragon 765 features an octa-core Kryo 475 CPU and an Adreno 620 GPU. The Snapdragon 765G ratcheted up the performance with a higher clocked version of the Adreno 620, delivering a 20 percent uplift in graphics performance. The Snapdragon...
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The biggest and baddest smartphone SoC on the market in Android land is no doubt the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865. Based on 7nm tech, the 8-core SoC comes mandatorily paired with the discrete Snapdragon X55 5G modem and powers current flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S20 family and the OnePlus 8 Series. With recent rumors that the previously expected Snapdragon 865+ won’t be released during the second half of 2020 with boosted CPU/GPU clocks, all attention is focusing on the next-generation Snapdragon 875 (SM8350). While Qualcomm is likely to give us official details on the chip during the closing months of 2020, some alleged specs have made their way to the internet. For starters,...
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Qualcomm made waves with its Snapdragon 865 SoC, but not just because of the performance it delivers. The Snapdragon 865 platform features support for GPU driver upgrades. This is something that is common in PCs, but not so much with smartphones. That changes today with Xiaomi rolling out the first GPU driver update for the Snapdragon 865. The driver itself pertains to the Adreno 650 GPU. It aims to bolster performance in select games, including PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, and Honkai Impact 3rd. The driver upgrade also updates OpenGL ES and Vulkan, according to XDA Developers. In a sense, this is sort of the start of a new era in smartphone gaming, or potentially, at least. "Late last year, Qualcomm...
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Around 8 months passed between the time Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon 855 and Snapdragon 855 Plus chipsets. The expectation was that Qualcomm would stick to a similar time frame for its Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865 Plus, which could mean the latter would be unveiled in July. It doesn't look like that will happen, though. The Snapdragon 865 launched in mid-December 2019, just as the Snapdragon 855 debuted a year prior, in December 2018, followed by the Snapdragon 855 Plus in July 2019. Qualcomm's first Plus variant brought with it faster clocks and a decent bump in performance, making it the go-to slice of mobile silicon for high-end smartphones, until the Snapdragon 865 arrived. We are...
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Nearly half a year has passed since Google launched its Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL phones, and the Pixel 4a and Pixel 4a XL are right around the corner. Is it too early to start talking about the Pixel 5? Of course not! And as it pertains to Google's next flagship smartphone series, there is chatter that the next round of flagships might adopt Samsung's Exynos SoC hardware. It is a bit of an interesting situation all around—Samsung itself uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors in its Galaxy handsets sold in the US and various other regions, but also sources its own Exynos chips for models in some places. This is the case with the Galaxy S20 as well, which sports either a Snapdragon 865 or Exynos...
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Qualcomm may be well-known for its powerful Snapdragon SoCs and 4G LTE/5G modems that power modern Android smartphones, but the company has a vast portfolio of other communications/audio/computing products as well. Qualcomm is a relatively big name in the audio market where it produces Bluetooth SoCs that power your wireless headsets. The company this week announced new entry- and premium tier QCC304x and QCC514x chips that promise to boost runtimes for wireless earbuds while bringing Active Noise Cancelling to lower price points. The primary difference between the two is that the QCC514x supports “always-on” voice recognition. In other words, you would be able to yell out...
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LG it is ready to jump back into the limelight with the release of its latest flagship mobile device, the V60 ThinQ 5G. As you'd expect from a flagship Android smartphone release in 2020, the V60 ThinQ 5G is powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 865 SoC which is mandatorily paired with the Snapdragon X55 5G modem. The V60 ThinQ 5G follows the trend of larger displays for flagship smartphones, and enters the fray with a 6.8-inch FHD+ (2460x1080) P-OLED FullVision panel. The display features a 20.5:1 aspect ratio and incorporates an in-display fingerprint reader. There's also a punch-hole cutout for the 10MP selfie camera at the top of the display. But LG doesn't stop there; it also offers...
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Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon XR2 5G platform for next-generation extended reality (XR) headsets back in late 2019. At the time, Qualcomm touted the platform's 11x uplift in AI performance and 2x improvement in CPU/GPU performance along with support for up to seven concurrent cameras on flagship headsets. Today, Qualcomm is showing off its reference design for headsets that use the Snapdragon XR2 5G platform. The current reference design maxes out the hardware capabilities of the chipset with seven cameras -- two internal for eye tracking, four exterior cameras (two of which are used for head tracking), and an additional camera for tracking facial/lip movements, or controller tracking....
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It looks as though LG had been gearing up to formally introduce its next-generation flagship phone, the V60 ThinQ, at Mobile World Congress (MWC), but that was before the Coronavirus outbreak threw a wrench into those plans. MWC was cancelled after several vendors pulled out of the show. So, where does that leave the V60 ThinQ? That's a good question. While we await an answer, what appears to be the first leaked render of the V60 ThinQ has emerged, courtesy of Android Headlines. As seen in the image above, the supposed render displays Monday, February 24, as the date. Before it was cancelled, MWC was scheduled to run from February 24-27. Maybe LG will still announced the V60 ThinQ on Monday,...
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Part of the migration into 5G territory involves upgraded hardware on the consumer side, and to date, there is a spattering of devices equipped with first generation and second generation 5G modems. That is not where the road ends, however. Taking the next step in the ongoing 5G revolution, Qualcomm announced a 5G modem-to-antenna solution called Snapdragon X60. This is not something consumers will buy directly, but a high-tech solution that will find its way into upcoming smartphones. The Snapdragon X60 is the first 5-nanometer based 5G modem-RF system, and also the first to aggregate mmWave and sub-6 spectrum using frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD). The general...
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The first smartphones using Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 865 SoC will be arriving on the market very shortly. And while many people will be looking forward to the Snapdragon 865 with respect to performance and its accompanying Snapdragon X55 5G modem, it will also usher in the era of 8K video recording for Android smartphones. Qualcomm today is showing us what the Spectra 480 image signal processor (ISP) within the Snapdragon 865 can do. Using a prototype Snapdragon 865 smartphone along with a Sony IMX586 image sensor, Qualcomm was able to capture the footage seen below at 8K, which translates into roughly 33 megapixels per frame. The footage that you see was captured back in November...
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Late in December, we got our first glimpse at the Google Pixel 4a, which is scheduled to arrive in the Spring to replace the well-received Pixel 3a. Renders of the device shows a smartphone with a punch hole cut-out for the selfie camera up front, a square pod on the back for a single camera, and a center-mounted optical fingerprint sensor. Today, new information is coming to light regarding the Pixel 4a family, and it will apparently be available in two variants. There seems to be some confusion as to whether there will be an "XL" version of the Pixel 4a made available this year, but some sleuthing by XDA-Developers has discovered references to a 5G variant. According to the report,...
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What would a smartphone launch be without the usual round of pre-launch leaks and rumors? We may never find out the answer to that question, because frequent leaks are simply part of the game these days (whether they're real or controlled leaks is another matter). And so it goes over at Geekbench, where where a bit of specs and performance data has seemingly been revealed for Samsung's next generation Galaxy S20 handset. Or you can call the Galaxy S11. That is still a possibility, though rumor has it Samsung is rolling with "Galaxy 20" for its next-gen flagship phone. To avoid confusion, we will refer to it as that from here on out. All that really matters is that we are clear on this being the...
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Take a look at your smartphone. Is it an Android device? If so, there is a very good chance it is rocking a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor inside, as many Android handsets do. Smartphones are not the final frontier for Qualcomm, though, which also has big aspirations of making tomorrow's autonomous vehicles much safer than they are today. The way there, according to Qualcomm, is through its Snapdragon Ride platform. Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas today, Snapdragon Ride is a robust set of hardware and software tools for automakers to design self-driving cars around. It consists of a family of scalable, open autonomous driving solutions, including Snapdragon Ride Safety...
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We are fresh back from the 2019 Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, during which the company revealed a number of new products and technologies. In addition to the XR2 5G next-generation VR platform, new Always-Connected PC processors, and the Snapdragon 765, which will target mainstream, 5G-enabled smartphones next year, Qualcomm also announced its flagship Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform. Just like its previous-gen predecessor, the Snapdragon 855 (and 855+), the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 platform will be the foundation for an array of premium Android smartphones released throughout 2020 (and beyond). Snapdragon 865 Chip Architecture - More Resources, Efficiency And Performance The Snapdragon...
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Smartphone OEMs have wasted no time pushing the envelope with specs and pricing in recent years. Devices like the iPhone 11 Pro and Galaxy Note 10 start at around $1,000 and can easily creep into the mid $1,000 range when you up the storage capacity (or add 5G in the case of Samsung's flagships). Likewise, Samsung is testing pricing limits with the Galaxy Fold, which is priced at $1,980. However, a new report from research firm NPD Group suggests that these uber-expensive smartphones haven't exactly been a hit with U.S. consumers. In fact, NPD's Mobile Phone Tracking service shows that fewer than 10 percent of Americans are choosing smartphones that retail for $1,000+. Given that some flagship...
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The launch of Samsung's Galaxy S11 smartphone is fast approaching, and a fresh tweet from a reliable source claims to have inside information on when the smartphone will be officially revealed. According to Ice Universe, Samsung has penciled in a mid-February launch for the Galaxy S11 family. More specifically, Ice Universe says that the Galaxy S11 will be unveiled alongside the Galaxy Fold 2 on February 18th, 2020 in San Francisco. This date seems highly plausible, as the Galaxy S10 family and the Galaxy Fold launched on February 21st, 2019. Rumors: Samsung Electronics is tentatively launching the Galaxy S11 series and clamshell foldable phones in San Francisco, USA on February...
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