HAWAII—To great fanfare and before a live audience Tuesday, Qualcomm introduced its latest premium 5G mobile platform, dubbed Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
Of course, Snapdragon 8, Gen 1 is bigger and better than previous generations, by way of AI, gaming, camera and Wi-Fi, as well as Bluetooth technologies, to “transform the next generation of flagship devices,” in Qualcomm’s words.
“As the world’s most advanced mobile platform, Snapdragon is synonymous with premium Android experiences and the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 sets the standard for the next generation of flagship mobile devices,” said Alex Katouzian, SVP of mobile, compute, and infrastructure at Qualcomm Technologies. “It delivers connectivity, photography, AI, gaming, sound, and security experiences never before available in a smartphone.”
Some of the new smartphones commercially introduced for the 2021 holiday season will feature this latest in Snapdragon technology. Global brands such as Motorola, OnePlus, Sony, Xiaomi, ZTE and OPPO, as well as Honor, IQOO, Black Shark, Nubia, Realme, Redmi, Sharp and vivo, will be adopting the new tech from Qualcomm.
Qualcomm boasts that Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which represents a deviation from the old Snapdragon 888 naming structure, is the most advanced 5G mobile platform and the world’s first 5G modem-RF solution to reach 10 Gigabit download speeds.
Giving some love to mmWave
During Tuesday’s keynote, Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon welcomed one U.S. wireless operator to the stage: Verizon CTO Kyle Malady via video feed to demonstrate what was billed as a world first, with an 8K HDR video call from Hawaii to New Jersey. They used Verizon’s millimeter wave (mmWave) network and a Snapdragon X65 Modem-RF enabled smartphone to show off super high-speed uplink and downlink.
Verizon continues to expand mmWave in markets across the country, and it’s also working on deploying C-band. Malady didn’t mention the one-month delay associated with the spectrum, but “you’ll see C-band in the not-too-distant future from us,” he promised.
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Interestingly, Amon said Qualcomm and Verizon are "inseparable" and gave a shout-out to mmWave, saying “this is how you are going to get the full potential of 5G.”
Millimeter wave – which has received its fair share of criticism – takes time to deploy, but “it’s going to enable next-generation experiences. It’s how we get more spectrum in the industry,” he said, adding that mmWave will allow for tapping into a lot more spectrum and multi-gigabit speeds.
The live audience for Tuesday’s keynote is notable because this marks the first Snapdragon Tech Summit since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the shores of the U.S.
This year’s event, which runs November 30 through December 2, features a hybrid format that combines the in-person stage and demo presence with livestreaming for those following along at home, or from wherever in the world they’re connecting. Qualcomm moved its usual morning keynotes to the afternoon in Hawaii so that a contingent of journalists and analysts could watch it live in the morning in Sanya, China, just one indication of how important the Chinese market is for the San Diego-based company.