Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Chip Is Expected To Be Powerful But Expensive
With the release of the Dimensity 9300+, MediaTek took the crown of the most powerful smartphone chip available in an Android phone, at least going by benchmarks. Qualcomm skipped the prospect of a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 3, which didn’t afford them the opportunity to take the lead again. However, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is the next flagship chip in the works from Qualcomm and it is expected to potentially be the most powerful smartphone chip overall, even considering Apple’s options.
However, as impressive as this chip is expected to be, that’s only the good news. The bad news is that, according to Weibo tipster Digital Chat Station, with that kind of power in the mix, the price of the chip is bound to “increase significantly”, which is certainly not great to hear.
Processors are already very expensive, so a significant price increase could mean multiple things. One is that smartphone manufacturers might simply throw the price hike on consumers with more expensive flagship phones. Another is that the manufacturers may need to cut corners to keep the price around the same mark, though consumers might not like that.
However, the last possibility is that this might mean some manufacturers choose to shun Qualcomm and go with MediaTek‘s next-generation option instead, which may provide comparable performance and what should be a lower price. That’d be good news for the company, which is already doing well in establishing itself as a solid option.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Will Introduce Qualcomm’s New Oryon Cores
Rumors on the street tell us that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be the first chip from the company to be built on a 3nm process. Normally, we’d say that this would mean better power efficiency, but the word is also that phones opting for this chip are likely going to need bigger batteries because Qualcomm is going to go all out on the performance side of things.
However, one of the exciting parts about this upcoming chipset that doesn’t involve bigger batteries and a higher price tag is that it should be the first smartphone chip to introduce Qualcomm’s new Oryon chips, which are expected to provide a pretty significant boost in performance. In fact, it’s said that these chips may finally surpass what the A chips from Apple are able to do.
If you’re a power user, getting a device with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 might be worth the potential price hike, but the phone is starting to come with quite a few concessions at this point. The Xiaomi 15 series is expected to be the first with the chip, so we’ll see then.
