Just recently, Qualcomm announced its brand-new Snapdragon 888 Plus Smartphone processor, which is an upgraded process model that’s based on the company’s original Snapdragon 888 processor, featuring a reasonable improvement in its clock speed that can now reach very close to 3 GHz.
The company’s official announcement for its brand-new Snapdragon 888 Plus Smartphone processorwas made in its online 5G Summit as part of a virtual appearance at MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2021, which is a famous annual trade show that’s dedicated primarily to the mobile communications industry, organized mainly by GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association).
Below, you can find the company’s official 5 Summit video, with its official announcement for the Snapdragon 888 Plus processor (starting at around 04:26):
As mentioned before, Qualcomm’s new upgraded Snapdragon 888 Plus processor features a boost in its clock speed when compared to its predecessor – meaning the original Snapdragon 888 processor – thus having a powerful bump in its original Kryo 680 CPU, going from a clock speed of 2.84GHz all the way up to 2.995GHz, for which Qualcomm has optimistically round it up slightly to a solid 3GHz, which was the real value shared in its marketing announcement.
Reasonably, Qualcomm’s marketing move is easy to understand, as if you really think about it, a 0.005GHz difference in clock speed isn’t much when you already got a 0.155GHz clock speed increase from its Snapdragon 888 processor.
What’s even more impressive to see is that Qualcomm is also upgrading its sixth-gen AI Engine, which basically means that its new Snapdragon 888 Plus processor also comes with improved AI capabilities. That said, while the company’s original Snapdragon 888 could “only” perform up to 26 trillion operations per second (TOPS) for any AI-based tasks, Qualcomm’s brand-new Snapdragon 888 Plus Smartphone processor is rated to be close to 20 percent more powerful than its predecessor, which makes it capable of achieving an impressive 32 TOPS (trillion operations per second).
As such, this 20% improvement in Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 888 Plus processor’s clock speed is expected to help with streaming video, game-playing, and more.
Now, it’s important to note that midyear refreshes for its best-performing chips / processors are nothing new for Qualcomm, as the company already took similar approaches in the past with its Snapdragon 855 Plus and 865 Plus, for which both processors served as more powerful mid-cycle updates for Qualcomm’s original 855 and 865 models.
In fact, just at the beginning of 2021, Qualcomm had already made an additional refresh on its Snapdragon 865 with the launch of the Snapdragon 870, which was basically a sort of Snapdragon 865 Plus-plus that offered additional improvements and a slighty higher clock speed that was based on its Snapdragon 865 Plus.
Back to Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 888 Plus. In its official specifications sheet for its upcoming Snapdragon 888 Plus 5G Mobile platform, Qualcomm mentioned that the AI elements will integrate a Kryo 680 CPU, an Adreno 660 GPU, and a Hexagon 780 processor, as well as three fused accelerators.
In addition to that, the renowned multinational chipmaker also stated that more than 130 different Smartphone models will be using either its Snapdragon 888 or its soon-to-be-released Snapdragon 888 Plus processor.
That said, it’s safe to say that most likely won’t be long before the Snapdragon 888 Plus starts showing up in many different 5G Smartphones. According to Qualcomm, the first Smartphones that will be coming equipped with the processor should be announced very soon, meaning just around the third-quarter of 2021.
As an example, Honor already pledged that it’ll be using Qualcomm’s new processor in its upcoming Magic 3 flagship, with other companies like Motorola, Vivo, Xiaomi, and even Asus stating that they’re also planning to release their own devices featuring the Snapdragon 888 Plus.
QUALCOMM’S OTHER PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Now, the good news don’t even stop there. During a portion of a Qualcomm’s virtual keynote, the company’s CEO Cristian Amon talked about new and innovative ways to use 5G in other devices than Smartphones, such as cars and industrial settings where faster speeds and lower latency than 4G will really be making a difference.
On one really interesting and valid example, Qualcomm shared an illustration of how a factory floor could be connected with 5G for achieving a much more precise positioning of its many machines, which would all be connected to a multi-access edge computing (MEC) core.
