The Xiaomi 14 phones were the first to launch with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. Once again, the Chinese smartphone maker has beaten other brands to the chase. A recent tip reveals that the Xiaomi 15 series will be the first to debut with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor.
Xiaomi's 15 series leads the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 train
Tech contributor, Yogesh Brar, shared on his X account that the Xiaomi 15 series will launch the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor before any other phone. That is the base 15 phone and the 15 Pro model. The phones are rumored to launch towards the end of the year, with no official word from the company about the exact release date.
Following closely behind them are the OnePlus 13 and iQOO 13 series. It's likely that all phones will launch in October as Qualcomm plans to reveal the chipset at the Snapdragon Summit by then.
All phones will first debut in their home market, China, before anywhere else. In the USA, Samsung may be the first to launch it on the upcoming Galaxy S25 flagship.
Samsung and Qualcomm have a long-standing partnership for phone processors. Of course, they distribute their own Exynos chips in many regions and phone models, but they heavily rely on Snapdragon for their higher-end phones in the USA. Who knows? They may stick to the Exynos chips this time around.
What's new in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4?
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor brings back the Oryon CPU cores in the previous Snapdragon X Elite chipset. It was an impressive 12-core chipset with TSMC’s 4-nanometer (nm) System-on-a-Chip architecture. In case you don't know, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company basically produces most of the tiny chips that go into our electronics. Qualcomm, AMD, and Nvidia are just a few of its clients.
The Snapdragon X Elite was limited to computer devices, like Microsoft's Surface Pro 10. On mobile phones, these cores are expected to outperform the Kryo cores in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, possibly resulting in faster performance for daily tasks, multitasking, and intensive gaming. Benchmarks indicate a potential 40% boost in multi-core performance.
Rumors are also making rounds that the processor will have a clock speed of up to 4.0Ghz. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 peaked at 3.30GHz. A higher clock speed allows the processor to complete more cycles per second, so it's a significant jump. But as expected, this increase in performance also means a higher price tag on any phone that runs it under the hood.
We await the Snapdragon Summit
Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit will uncover more details on the aforementioned phone releases and the 8 Gen 4 processor. They haven't disclosed the exact date, but last year's event happened on October 24 to 26 in Hawaii. This year's version may happen around the same time but in a different location.
The year is still early and there's plenty of time for new developments and announcements to drop before that time. Keep your eyes peeled for them on Qualcomm's official online channels, as well as Xiaomi's and other manufacturers.
