Acer has revealed its latest notebook, and while the Spin 7 may look like a regular convertible, inside there's something that sets it apart from the rest of the company's range. The first laptop to use Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G platform, it eschews x86 processors from Intel and AMD, looking instead to the lengthy battery life and connectivity that our smartphones enjoy.
Intel may have shown off its newest chips for ultraportable notebooks yesterday, but today Qualcomm is aiming to eclipse that with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G Compute Platform. The latest iteration of the chip-maker's high-end ARM architecture for always-connected laptops and 2-in-1s, it promises 5G as standard, along with not just hours but days of battery life.
Qualcomm has a new gaming chipset for smartphones, with the Snapdragon 732G aiming to deliver an uptick in graphics performance in more affordable handsets. Compared to the Snapdragon 730G, Qualcomm says that the Adreno 618 GPU in the new Snapdragon 732G should deliver a 15-percent improvement in graphics rendering.
Xiaomi sub-brand POCO has been rumored to be working on another model to add to its collection, that despite having already released two phones earlier this year. That said, the POCO X3, as it is currently being called, is expected to sport a slightly different design that will set it apart even from Xiaomi's other phones. That, however, might not be its only new feature as leaked specs hint at a slight upgrade from the POCO X2.
India seems to be the place where companies like Motorola are really fighting fiercely for the market with smartphones that go to the extreme. In this case, that means a Motorola Moto G9 was released in India for ₹11,499 (approximately $154) with a set of specifications that are more than powerful enough for most consumers. Why can't the United States get a value proposition like that?
HMD Global just closed a $230-million dollar investment round with investments from Google, Qualcomm, and Nokia. This makes a whole lot of sense as HMD Global works with Foxconn to create Nokia-branded (brand licensed) Android smartphones with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors inside. They've made some pretty decent smartphones over the past few years, and they're on the verge of becoming a premiere player in the "highly affordable smartphones with 5G connectivity" market.
![400 Qualcomm Snapdragon DSP chip bugs put phones at risk [UPDATE]](https://www.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/qualcomm-dsp-1280x720.jpg)
The size of smartphones often belies the power they hold as well as the complexity of their construction. Phones may be said to come from this or that country or manufacturer but the truth is that different parts can be traced back to different sources and suppliers. All smartphones have many components in common, of course, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors have the lion's share of those. Unfortunately, that also means that when that particular chip turns out to have a vulnerability, it also puts the majority of the world's smartphones at risk.
It seems that Huawei is quickly running out of time to keep its mobile business from getting significantly impacted by its tussle with the US government. It has just confirmed that its upcoming high-end Mate 40 series flagship will be the last of its kind to bear its equally high-end systems-on-chip, the Kirin processors made by subsidiary HiSilicon. While there is still a great deal of uncertainty in HiSilicon's future, Huawei has apparently gained an unlikely champion in 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.
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.
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.
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.