The long-announced Snapdragon 888 return kit is Qualcomm’s most advanced system that will undoubtedly find its way into most flagship devices, but today the company unveils another intriguing product called the Snapdragon 870 which is nothing but an improved version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor that was Qualcomm’s flagship processor during 2020.
The Snapdragon 870 comes with the same graphics processor (Adreno 650) and identical fifth generation modem (X55), however the main processor increases to a speed of 3.2 GHz compared to 3.1 in the original version. This change, along with a few other minor architectural improvements, should make the Snapdragon 870 a little faster than the Snapdragon 865, meaning that manufacturers that incorporate it in the beginning will be able to offer performance that until a moment ago was reserved for flagship devices only.
The price, however, may be significantly lower than that of the Snapdragon 888, in part because the 870 is produced in the older and more common 7-nanometer process compared to the 888, which is produced in the 5-nanometer process. For the same reason, the Snapdragon 870 is expected to be available to manufacturers in relatively large quantities, while the Snapdragon 888 may be a little hard to come by at least in the first few months of the year.
All this explains why the manufacturers are indeed very interested in the new processor. While the announcement does not include details on specific devices that will use the chipset, Qualcomm is willing to say that among others OnePlus, Motorola, Oppo and Xiaomi are already working on Snapdragon 870 devices that will hit the market in the coming months.
