Technolgy Rules: Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 865 and 765 platforms

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 865 and 765 platforms

This morning at its annual Snapdragon summit in Hawaii, Qualcomm offered a glimpse at two new Snapdragon chips. You know how this works: the chipmaker offers some insight into the components that will power the vast majority of Android flagships over the course of the coming year.

The two headliners for the even are the flagship-level Snapdragon 865 and the lower-end 765. No surprise, Qualcomm is focused on 5G and AI for both systems — the latter of which has become an increasingly important piece of the mobile ecosystem, while the former is expected to start driving a majority of smartphone purchases beginning next year.

Here’ Qualcomm,

The flagship Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform, which includes the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System, is the world’s most advanced 5G platform, delivering unmatched connectivity and performance for the next generation of flagship devices. The Snapdragon 765/765G brings integrated 5G connectivity, advanced AI processing, and select Snapdragon Elite Gaming experiences.

Notably, the mid-range765 features an integrated 5G option, unlike the higher-end 865, which utilizes the separate X55 5G modem. Like the latter decision is a sign of the relatively slow roll out of 5G handsets this year. They’ll surely become more of a mainstay in 2020, but many manufacturers will likely continue to offer non-5G options, particularly in countries where carriers have been slower to introduce the next-gen network.

Right now, it’s just a glimpse of what’s to come. Expect more information to be rationed out of the next few days of the summit. We may also get a look at some of the first handsets this week in Hawaii, but likely the announcements will really begin in earnest comes CES and MWC in early-January and late-February, respectively.

Also new is Sonic Max, a new fingerprint scanning technology. The hook here is a much larger surface area for the in-screen scanner — 17x larger, according to Qualcomm’s numbers.