Quick summary
Qualcomm has announced the latest addition to its Snapdragon 8-Series hardware with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4.
This hardware will enable cheaper flagship-level devices that sit under the Snapdragon 8 Elite in terms of performance.
Qualcomm has announced the latest addition to its Snapdragon 8-Series family in the form of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4. This is a slightly lower-spec version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite that was announced in October 2024.
The expansion of the 8-Series hardware opens the door for more affordable sub-flagship phones, with brands like Xiaomi, Redmi and Oppo already confirmed to use the hardware. In the past, we’ve also seen companies like Motorola using this type of hardware, enabling a slightly cheaper flagship device.
The big difference compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite is that this new hardware uses the older Kyro core, rather than the Oryon core that’s in the 8 Elite and the Snapdragon X hardware that’s now powering Windows laptops and tablets.
However, that doesn’t mean that the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is weak, with Qualcomm saying that it offers 49% improved graphics performance, 31% more compute performance and 44% increased AI performance compared to the previous generation of hardware.
On the connectivity front, there’s support for WiFi 7 on top of 5G and Bluetooth 6.0 for super-speedy wireless connections.
The launch of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 follows the pattern for Qualcomm hardware in recent times, replacing the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 which was announced in March 2024 and powered phones such as the Poco F6, Motorola Edge 50 Ultra, Honor 200 Pro and Motorola Razr 50 Ultra.
Qualcomm highlights that there’s a new sliced GPU architecture and Snapdragon Elite Gaming features which support ray tracing for great immersive gaming experiences, alongside upscaling for lower resolution graphics.
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There’s powerful support for cameras too, with an advanced image signal processor that’s capable of real-time skin and sky tone corrections, while also offering 4K 30fps low light video. There’s loads of AI power thanks to the NPU (neural processing unit), supporting on-device generative AI.
New devices that sit on the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 platform are expected imminently, with launches forecast for the next couple of months. And they should be able to utilise some of the tech boosts above, without breaking the bank.