Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 865, 765 Mobile Platforms For Next-Gen Premium 5G Phones

As you might expect for SoCs that will be powering the bulk of flagship Android smartphones in 2020, all three SKUs bring 5G connectivity to the table. Given that this is just Day 1 of Qualcomm's 3-day tech extravaganza, the company is being rather light on details for now.

What we do know at this time, however, is that the Snapdragon 865 is being billed as the true "flagship" SoC, and that it includes the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System. The Snapdragon X55 is the successor to the Snapdragon X50, which has been used by all first-generation 5G smartphones during 2019 (a la Galaxy S10 5G, Galaxy Note 10 5G, OnePlus 7T 5G McLaren).

Then there are the Snapdragon 765 and Snapdragon 765G. Qualcomm is simply stating that these chips will bring "bring integrated 5G connectivity, advanced AI processing, and select Snapdragon Elite Gaming experiences." We don't know what 5G modem will be embedded with these SoCs, but we'd reckon that it won't be the Snapdragon X55.

Based on the release of the Snapdragon 730/730G earlier this year, we'd imagine that the Snapdragon 765 is the "standard" chip, while the Snapdragon 765G is the "gaming" chip with a higher clock for the GPU. In the case of the Snapdragon 730G, its Adreno 618 GPU offered a 15 percent performance boost over the standard chip. We'd imagine that we'll see similar gains for the Snapdragon 765G versus the Snapdragon 765. 

With that being said, Qualcomm will reveal full details on the Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 765/765G on Wednesday.