It’s only been five months since Qualcomm first announced its first 5G mobile platform in the Snapdragon 855 Chipset but the company looks to be already working on its successor. Having already leaked with an internal codename SM8250, the chipset which is touted to feature a 5G Modem like the one on the SND 855, is now also expected to come in a non-5G variant.
The news comes from Roland Quandt who revealed that the next generation of flagship mobile chipset from Qualcomm will feature an external 5G modem. This means there could be a Snapdragon 865 model that will not feature a 5G modem internallywhich is contrary to what Qualcomm indicated previously.
In simple terms, we can expect the company to sell two versions of the Snapdragon 865 – one with a 5G modem inbuilt and another without it.
Snapdragon 865 is expected to power flagship smartphones of 2020 which will still be an early stage for the enrolment toward 5G. 5G has currently been set up in portions of the US with China, Europe and South Korea expected to feature in the technology sometime this year. There’s still time for the technology to come to India.
The move to develop two versions of the Snapdragon 865 comes from the 5G rollout as stated above. For countries where 5G cellular technologies have been set up or are in the process of setting up, the Snapdragon 865 with an integrated 5G modem will help save space inside the smartphone for a bigger battery or additional equipment.
In markets where 5G deployment isn’t expected anytime soon, like in India, we can expect OEMs to ship the next generation flagship devices with the Snapdragon 865 without a 5G modem. This will also bring down the product cost of the phone and will, in turn, make flagship devices cheaper in the non-5G markets.
The current set of 5G phones make use of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem which is externally fitted to the chipset. However, the company recently launched the Snapdragon X55 with support for sub-6 GHz and mmWave bands which could be internally embedded in the company’s next flagship processor.