Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is Qualcomm’s new high-end processor for cell phones and tablets. The chip, announced by the company on Tuesday (15) during the Snapdragon Summit, is designed with artificial intelligence (AI) integrated. With performance 35% faster than Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the mobile platform promises a better experience in capturing photos and videos, as well as gameplay even more turbocharged than that provided by its predecessor. SD 8 Gen 2 also brings advances in connectivity, being the first 5G processor with AI.
Highlights of the spec sheet include the eight-core Kryo 385 CPU, led by the powerful 3.2GHz Cortex-X3, and the Adreno GPU, which should deliver 40% more power efficiency. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is coming to revolutionize the high-end smartphone landscape in 2023. The processor should equip premium phones from Xiaomi, Samsung, Motorola, and other manufacturers.
To develop the new chip, the manufacturer said it “put the user at the center.” The company has invested heavily in artificial intelligence, a technology that is integrated throughout the board. With this, users will be able to experience faster natural language processing, with simultaneous translation into several languages right from the device, and advanced camera features, for example. Techidence lists the main highlights of Qualcomm’s new premium chipset in the following lines.
Smarter Photo Capture
When it comes to photo capturing, one of the highlights of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the “semantic segmentation” feature. The processor uses an artificial intelligence neural network to make the camera recognize – before you even press the capture button – each element of the photo and optimize it individually, so that every detail receives professional, personalized adjustments. To give you an idea, it is as if the items were treated like Photoshop layers.
The feature has been trained not only to detect faces, hair, clothes, and backgrounds, but also details such as lips, eyes, and teeth. Thus the technology can detect a pair of glasses and remove their reflection from the lens, for example.
In addition, thanks to the optimization of Samsung’s ISOCELL HP3 sensor, the SD 8 Gen 2 enables the capture of photos of up to 200 megapixels. The ISP (Image Signal Processor) has also been improved: it can capture from three cameras simultaneously, with four times more color and light data compared to the previous generation, which yields even more professional images. It is also the first Snapdragon to include an AV1 codec supporting playback of up to 8K videos with HDR at 60 frames per second.
Turbocharged Gameplay
Snapdragon Elite Gaming, a feature that combines software and hardware to enhance mobile gaming performance, has also gained new features. The system now features real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology. Previously available only on PCs, the feature provides more realistic and better-lit graphics, with accurate reflections and smoother shadows.
Also new is that Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the first mobile platform to receive optimized support for the MetaHuman Creator tool from the Unreal Engine game engine. Thanks to this, players will be able to experience photorealistic human characters.
In addition, since the Adreno GPU offers up to 25% faster performance, and the Kryo CPU enables up to 40% more power efficiency, the expectation is that gamers will have an even more turbocharged gaming experience with longer battery life.
More immersive sound experience
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 also arrives to offer a more immersive sound experience in music, calls, and games. Snapdragon Sound technology on the chip now features spatial audio with head tracking. This way, the user is always in the center of the listening experience, no matter where the user moves, enhancing the sense of immersion.
Snapdragon Sound also promises lossless music playback and ultra-low latency – less than 48 ms – in Bluetooth streams, which should eliminate communication delays between gamers during gaming.
5G at 10 GB per second
Connectivity is a cornerstone of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the company’s first mobile platform to support two 5G SIMs at once. The maximum speed provided by the chip is 10 GB per second, with 5 GB/s downloads and 3.5 GB/s uploads. The numbers are impressive, but still unthinkable for the reality – 5G SA reaches speeds starting at 800 MB/s and, in ideal conditions, can exceed 1 GB/s.
The SD 8 Gen 2 also stands out for offering Wi-Fi 7, a new wireless Internet speed standard, with latency lower than two 2ms – the lowest in the world, according to Qualcomm. The configuration provides much faster connections for gaming, live-streaming, and other activities.
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