Qualcomm

Like it or not, Qualcomm is the name of the game when it comes to systems-on-chip (SoCs) in smartphones. Apple's A silicon may surpass it but is only available for iPhones. Samsung's Exynos has been criticized for lagging behind and Huawei's Kirin is now an endangered specie. The closest thing it has to a rival is really MediaTek but the latter's latest 5G-enabled Dimensity chipsets have so far been confined to China. That may finally be changing but it remains to be seen how the chipmaker plans on breaking Qualcomm's hold on the market.

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Smartphones are slowly but surely approaching PC-level performance, enough for certain companies to bank on mobile technologies to power their next-gen computers. One area where mobile still can't catch up with is in graphics and it will still be a long time before it ever will. That said, it seems that there are efforts from Qualcomm and Chinese phone makers like Xiaomi that are giving users the option of tweaking their phones' graphics performance to their preferences and needs.

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Pokemon GO developer Niantic may be creating a set of augmented reality smart glasses, but it has no intention of building them itself, the company has confirmed. Niantic had announced last December that it would be working on a set of AR glasses using Qualcomm's chipset technology, and with which games like Pokemon GO and Ingress could better integrate into the real world.

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Despite the general decline of figures in the smartphone market, Apple has so far remained seemingly impervious to the effects of COVID-19. Products are not only launching on schedule but also selling well in contrast to its rivals. That streak, however, might not continue for long and rumors of delays for its iPhone 12 might actually have some truth to them, at least if Qualcomm's subtle hints about its earnings can indeed be attributed to Apple's first 5G smartphones.

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The next OnePlus smartphone was leaked in part by a benchmark test, weeks if not months before launch. The next OnePlus device was almost certainly going to be the OnePlus 8T, if history served as guide for expectations in the near future. It's not that surprise that we're looking for, here - it's the degree to which OnePlus will change they way they do business in the USA thanks to their launch of OnePlus Nord.

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Samsung has always put the best of the best components in its flagship Galaxy phones but one critical hardware is quickly becoming a liability rather than an asset. Its own branded Exynos silicon, in spite and despite all the marketing, has had trouble catching up with its Qualcomm equivalents in recent iterations. That disparity made headlines when the Galaxy S20 launched earlier this year and Samsung seems fated to make the same mistake with the Galaxy Note 20 with one minor difference. It will use a supposedly improved version of the Exynos 990 instead.

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Smartphones are being compared a lot with regular computers because of the great strides they have made in power while still keeping power consumption at a minimum. Of course, it's apples to oranges considering there are many things smartphones or even tablets can't do that even laptop users take for granted. Never mind how impossible it is to upgrade or add fast storage (microSD cards don't count), even software updates to key hardware components are more than just difficult. Google and its Android partners have been working to make that last bit a little easier and OPPO is just one of the extremely few, really two, to take advantage of that.

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Quick Charge 5 has arrived, and Qualcomm's latest high-speed charging system promises even less time hovering next to your adapter, not to mention more flexibility with devices. Now supporting upward of 100W, Quick Charge 5 could take compatible 4,500 mAh devices from zero to 50-percent of a charge in 5 minutes, the chip-maker suggests.

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Phone makers and chipmakers are still in a race to get as many 5G phones out there, despite how 5G rollout could be slowed down or delayed due to medical, economic, and political factors. Last year, that race focused more on the high-end premium phones that only a limited number of people could afford. The players are now taking that 5G competition down to the lower tiers and, unsurprisingly, MediaTek is attempting to fill those markets even before Qualcomm has a chance to get a foothold.

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For years, Samsung has been using a two-processor strategy for its high-end flagships, launching with a Qualcomm Snapdragon in the US and China while other markets get Samsung's own Exynos chip. It changed its tune earlier this year and even went with the Snapdragon 865 for Galaxy S20 phones sold in its own hometown. That caused quite a ruckus even within Samsung's own ranks and it seems that history will repeat itself next month when the Galaxy Note 20 launches with the Snapdragon 865+ in Korea, too.

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Qualcomm has added a new flagship chipset to its smartphone processor line-up, with the Snapdragon 865 Plus 5G Mobile Platform promising even more performance than its Snapdragon 865 sibling. As the name - which Qualcomm is also stylizing as "Snapdragon 865+" - suggests, this isn't so much a full revamp of the existing SoC but a way for Qualcomm to massage more power out of it as it looks to new phones for the second half of the year.

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It’s been some time since we’ve seen Qualcomm upgrade its wearable silicon, but today, the company announced that it’s doing just that. Qualcomm has revealed the Snapdragon Wear 4100 series, which comprises the standard 4100 and the 4100+. Like the 3100 series that came before it, the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ is built using Qualcomm’s “hybrid approach” that pairs a main SoC with an always-on co-processor.

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