Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 Ready For Autumn’s Smartphones

Chipmaker Qualcomm has unveiled its 821 processor, the company’s successor to the 820.

Due to debut in devices later this year, the 821 claims to offer a 10 percent performance boost over its predecessor, with its Qualcomm Kryo quad-core CPU hitting speeds of up to 2.4GHz.

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But the 821 is just a marginal update, designed to give Qualcomm customers the competitive edge for their smartphones in the second half of 2016 without having to design a device that will use a whole new chip. Other than that buffed CPU, there isn’t really anything else to note.

Rather, that smartphone you bought at the start of 2016, perhaps the Galaxy S7 or the LG G5, is now running on a chip that isn’t as fast as it could be. But such is the way with smartphones.

Qualcomm’s 820 series has been a success though, also featuring in the Xiaomi Mi5, HTC 10, LeEco LeMax 2, and Sony Xperia X. It pulled away from the performance issues some users experienced with 2015’s 810 series. The first device you’ll likely see the 821 working with is the Samsung Galaxy Note, which could debut in August.

“The Snapdragon 821 will help set a new bar for smartphones, tablets, mobile VR head mounted displays and other new devices and you can expect commercial devices powered by the 821 in the second half of 2016,” said Qualcomm today.

“Building on the technology of the Snapdragon 820 platform, the 821 is engineered to deliver faster speed, improved power savings and greater application performance, ensuring 821 powered devices keep pace with the growing performance demands of users to deliver the unmatched user experiences the Snapdragon 800 tier is known for.”

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