Qualcomm Snapdragon 845: All you need to know about the flagship mobile chipset

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 focuses on camera, AI and battery.

The new Snapdragon 845 mobile platform has been announced at the ongoing Snapdragon tech summit in Hawaii. The successor to the Snapdragon 835 brings with it a number of new features, including a big improvement on the camera front, faster performance, and focus on AI, among others.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845  mobile platform will likely to feature in all the flagship phones of 2018, including the Samsung Galaxy S9, Xiaomi Mi 7, Google Pixel 3, and more. Below is the detailed look at Qualcomm’s latest flagship mobile chipset.

Faster performance 

The Snapdragon 845 has received a performance boost over its predecessor. The Adreno 630 offers 30 per cent improved graphics and 30 per cent greater efficiency. In terms of clock speeds, the Snapdragon 845 will run at 2.8 GHz, up from the Snapdragon 835’s 2.45GHz. Thanks to the new Kryo 385 architecture, one should expect up to 25 per cent performance boost across gaming and applications launch times compared to the previous generation.

Better camera quality

The Snapdragon 845 offers a number of improvements on the camera improvements, and that’s possibly due to the Spectra 280 image signal processor (ISP). This integrated chipset supports fater, 60fps multi-frame noise reductions at 16MP, meaning your phone will perform even better in low-light conditions.

Another big highlight for the camera is the ability to shoot Ultra HD (4K) videos at 60fps. The company promises users will be able to record cinema-quality video on a phone. The Snapdragon 845 also supports single-camera bokeh – like the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2XL – giving you shallow depth of field without the need for dual cameras on the back of the device.

Improved security

Security is becoming increasing important on a phone. And the important feature for the Snapdragon 845 is its Secure Processing Unit (SPU). Qualcomm says this is a separate component within the Snapdragon 845, with its own microprocessor, own memory, own crypto engine, and a random number generator. The basic idea the SPU is to secure your private data, passwords and other biometric details, so that it’s not accessible to hackers.

Longer battery life

Expect better battery management and a slightly longer battery life on a smartphone that’s going to be powered by a Snapdragon 845. Qualcomm claims the Snapdragon 845 deliver up to 30 percent power reduction for video capture, games and XR applications (AR, VR and mixed reality)  compared to the Snapdragon 835. Then there’s a support for the Quick Charge 4+, which according to the company will charge your phone from empty to 50 per cent in 15 minutes.

Fast connectivity

The second-generation X20 LTE model promises to offer a 20 per cent increase in peak and real world performance. It also has support for Bluetooth 5, but some proprietary enhancements that allows users to broadcast audio simultaneously to multiple wireless speakers. There’s support for dual VoLTE sims on a single phone.

Big focus on Augmented reality (AR)

Augmented reality (AR) is a big focus here. The chipset maker says its third-generation AI mobile platform offers a 3x performance boost. It simply means improved personal assistant performance, making voice interactions better and more natural. The company has added support for Tensorflow Lite and the new Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX), in addition to Google’s TensorFlow and Facebook’s Caffe/Caffe2 frameworks.