This week was a miserable one for the analysts who cowl the smartphone market. Traditionally we fly to Hawaii to attend the Qualcomm occasion, the place we get a way of what new options the premium telephones could have within the subsequent yr. Thanks to COVID this yr, we received a field with issues that reminded us of Hawaii in it and watched the occasion streamed, which isn’t even near the identical factor.
Ironically, whereas the enhancements aren’t that Earth-shattering, Qualcomm knocked it out of the park this yr. Next yr’s premium telephones (nicely, from most everybody however Apple) promise to have among the most intensive year-over-year advances this market has ever seen.
But one factor caught my eye that stands out above the remainder: the Qualcomm Sensing Hub, which guarantees to supply performance that many people didn’t understand we needed. Let’s speak about among the developments after which spend some high quality time on that sensing hub.
Brief overview of telephone advances
Before we get to the sensing hub, listed below are among the advances to look ahead to subsequent yr on the prime of most telephone traces (besides Apple–and sure, I’m selecting on Apple). With each new expertise, the primary units are inclined to underperform expectations, and later units do much better. This final result seems to be true on this case as a result of subsequent yr, each the community infrastructure and the 5G telephones will enhance considerably. Carrier aggregation, dynamic spectrum sharing and millimeter wave capabilities and deployments ought to make 5G efficiency by year-end with then-new premium telephones considerably outperform most something out there this yr.
Photos get a large enchancment with the power to take as much as 120 excessive dynamic vary photographs in a second coupled with AI enhancements that can present auto framing and a stage of auto-editing we’ve by no means seen earlier than. Pictures confirmed that utilizing the prototype telephones matched or exceeded comparable pictures utilizing skilled pictures gear, and the brand new low-light efficiency was nearly unbelievable. I used to be knowledgeable photographer just a few years again, and I doubt I may have created the too high-quality photos this superior AI-backed pictures resolution places out.
Gaming has superior on the telephone, and efficiency ranges rival gaming consoles, extraordinarily low latency and speeds exceeding 90 frames per second in 4K. I ought to add that Qualcomm is already showcasing 144 frames per second within the lab, so this will probably be a transferring goal. Part of how they get there may be an AI-driven element that places the video energy the place you want it and reduces GPU loading by as much as 40%.
Speaking of AI, Qualcomm is transferring its AI efficiency, utilizing a devoted AI processor, from 15 TOPS (trillion operations per second) to 26 TOPS. Our smartphones are going to be getting a ton smarter. This enchancment could have lots to do with the image high quality above, sound high quality (which goes up considerably), and what the telephone is able to doing.
Qualcomm Sensing Hub
Speaking of what the telephone can do, the Qualcomm Sensing Hub seems to be to be a game-changer. I’ve had many sensors in our telephones for a while and…
