Qualcomm announces its 2017 flagship, the Snapdragon 835

With CES 2017 in full swing, Qualcomm announced its first-ever 10nm SoC (System on Chip) and next-generation flagship – the Snapdragon 835, manufactured by Samsung.

Snapdragon 835 will be the first Qualcomm chipset to be manufactured using the 10nm FinFET process technology that Samsung adopted last October. The 10nm fabrication tech allows for smaller chipsets that in turn enable thinner devices. Though OEMs may want to use that extra space for bigger batteries or other modules.

A successor to 2016’s Snapdragon 820 SoCs, the Snapdragon 835 chipset features improved performance, better power efficiency and new capabilities for virtual reality and photography. With the Snapdragon 830, Qualcomm is pushing the envelope on next-generation technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, and intriguingly, support for ARM on Windows 10.

In terms of numbers, Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon 835 is 35% smaller than the Snapdragon 820, delivers a 25% performance increase, consumes 25% less power, charges 20% faster, and supports new technologies such Gigabit LTE, Bluetooth 5, Quick Charge 4 and LPDDR4X RAM.

The Snapdragon 835 is also fully compatible with Google’s Daydream, and offers low-latency and six-degrees-of-freedom for precise motion tracking. For photography enthusiasts, it supports up to 32MP cameras or dual 16MP cameras. So, we can expect a slew of VR and AR focused smartphones this year that will also be good camera-phones, hopefully.

Qualcomm also announced that Samsung has started production of the Snapdragon 835 SoCs and we can expect commercial devices with its new flagship in the first half of 2017. Unlike previous Qualcomm flagships, these commercial devices will now include mobile devices running Windows 10! Thanks to Microsoft’s efforts towards enabling x86 legacy apps on the ARM platform, this means smaller, lighter tablets that run ‘full’ Windows for the productivity-obsessed.

Outside Apple’s walled-garden, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon line dominates the smartphone segment. Almost every flagship Android device on the market runs on Snapdragon SoCs. Being a significant upgrade, the Snapdragon 835 will continue that trend. Add in Qualcomm’s efforts to bring it to other device categories, and it means even greater expansion potential!

For more details, click here for Qualcomm’s official announcement.

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