Today we’re reviewing a slightly uncommon system, the brand new ASUS “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders”. The system had been first introduced a month in the past by Qualcomm and ASUS, and represents a form of bizarre form of collaboration between the 2 firms. The telephone follows a push by Qualcomm in social media and advertising to attempt to promote their Snapdragon model, and a program known as the Snapdragon Insiders initiative.
The “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders” – a slightly unintuitive title which we’ll shorthand as SSI from right here on, is bizarre in that whereas it’s primarily pushed by Qualcomm advertising, it’s truly an ASUS designed and manufactured product. The preliminary announcement of the system was a bit complicated in that one would have thought it’s a Qualcomm developed telephone, however the relationship is slightly a bit extra blurred and complicated. For the time being, you may consider the telephone as merely being one other ASUS system, with Qualcomm Snapdragon branding.
For in the present day’s overview (which we’re calling a preview in the meanwhile, extra on this later), there’s one extraordinarily notable parallel which we are able to’t assist making, and that’s the comparability to ASUS’ personal ROG Phone 5 telephone which was introduced and launched earlier within the 12 months. As each gadgets are designed and manufactured by the identical occasion, there’s going to be some excessive similarities between the telephones – so evaluating them and pitting them towards one another is an inevitability in my eyes.
Disclosure: Qualcomm has despatched us a free overview unit of the “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders” for overview. The overview is an unbiased analysis of the product.
| ASUS Big Phones | |||||
| ROG Phone 5 |
“Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders” |
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| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 1x Cortex-X1 @ 2.84GHz 3x Cortex-A78 @ 2.42GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.80GHz Adreno 660 @ 840MHz |
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| DRAM | 8/16 GB LPDDR5 | 16 GB LPDDR5 | |||
| Storage | 128/256GB UFS 3.1 | 512GB UFS 3.1 | |||
| Display | 6.78″ AMOLED 2448 x 1080 (20:9) 144Hz 240Hz Touch |
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| Size | Height | 173.00 mm | 173.15 mm | ||
| Width | 77.00 mm | 77.25 mm | |||
| Depth | 9.90 mm | 9.55 mm | |||
| Weight | 239 grams | 210 grams | |||
| Battery Capacity | 5770 typ (2x 2885) 22.33Wh “6000mAh” design 65W charging (PD3.0/QC5.0) |
“4000mAh”
65W charging (PD3.0/QC5.0) |
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| Wireless Charging | – | ||||
| Rear Cameras | |||||
| Main | 64MP IMX686 0.8µm pixels (1.6µm 4:1 16MP) f/1.8 26.6mm eq. |
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| Telephoto | – | 8MP 3x optical f/2.Four w/OIS 80mm eq. |
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| Wide | 12MP IMX363 1.4µm pixels Dual PDAF f/2.2 14.3mm eq. |
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| Extra | 5MP Macro | – | |||
| Front Camera | 24MP f/2.45 |
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| I/O | USB-C 3.5mm headphone |
USB-C | |||
| Wireless (native) | 802.11ax WiFi-6E Bluetooth 5.2 LE + NFC |
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| Other Features | In-display fingerprint sensor | Rear fingerprint sensor Global 5G (sub-6 + mmWave) |
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| Dual-SIM | Dual nanoSIM | ||||
| Launch Price | (16/256GB) $999 |
(16/512GB) $1499 |
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Starting off with the {hardware}, the SSI is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 SoC. Qualcomm had famous that the telephone doesn’t include the newer Snapdragon 888+ as a result of the telephone was already in design and manufacturing earlier than the S888+ got here to market, in order that they opted to make use of that platform for the system and keep away from delaying it additional.
What’s a bit particular concerning the Smartphone for Snapdragon insiders is a number of modifications within the inside {hardware}. First off, the telephone solely is available in a single configuration, with a whopping 16GB of LPDDR5 and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Generally, that is already one of many points which places the telephone at a better value tier compares to different gadgets, so it’s necessary to maintain this in thoughts.
The different necessary side of the SSI is its mobile community compatibility and radio front-end and antenna design: To preserve it easy, this telephone helps each single 5G frequency band on this planet –…
