Qualcomm

When Samsung revealed its "most powerful Galaxy" last month, it was expected that an unusual Galaxy would also show up. The Galaxy Book Go isn't exactly powerful as far as the rumors went so maybe it was an ill-fit for the event after all. That said, it does have its appeal, or at least Samsung is trying to make it sound appealing, with its focus on mobility and battery life. Of course, that's thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7c and 8cx compute platforms which basically means the Galaxy Book Go series is the latest addition to the rather small group of Windows 10 on ARM laptops.

Continue Reading

Wear OS by Google got a fair bit of positive media coverage a few weeks ago thanks to Google's announcements at its I/O 2021 developer's conference. But while the software is getting a massive upgrade, at least later this year or maybe even next year, it remains the case that all but one Wear OS smartwatch are running older Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear processors. Smartwatches to be launched later this year might finally change that and the OPPO Watch 2 could be leading the fray.

Continue Reading

A few days ago, OnePlus finally confirmed what its next Nord-branded phones will be called. While the OnePlus Nord N200 5G will be the entry-level phone that those in the US and Canada will be able to buy, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G is the one that will be heading to some global markets in less than two weeks. That does give time for leaks about the latter's specs and, based on this first serving, it might be a mixed bag of downgrades and upgrades.

Continue Reading

Qualcomm is launching a new version of its chipset for laptops, with the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 promising more performance for affordable Windows notebooks and Chromebooks. The successor, as you probably guessed, to late-2019's Snapdragon 7c, this second-generation chipset keeps the multi-day battery life and embedded LTE, but throws in more performance and a boost to multimedia.

Continue Reading

Qualcomm may have much of the attention in the media when it comes to smartphone processors but it might be slowly losing ground when it comes to actual market share. Figures from the last few quarters revealed MediaTek's growing reach as more and more smartphone makers adopt its growing number of 5G processors. Some, like Xiaomi, were previously Snapdragon-only houses and soon OnePlus might follow that pattern with the Nord 2 and a Dimensity 1200 instead of a Qualcomm chip.

Continue Reading

Qualcomm has a new 5G chipset for midrange smartphones, borrowing flagship tech to give the Snapdragon 778G 5G Mobile Platform a boost. Revealed today, the new SoC aims to bridge the price tags of more affordable devices with the functionality of high-end devices, many of which are now comfortably in the four-figure realm.

Continue Reading

The entire tech world has been plunged into another crisis while still wallowing in the COVID-19 pandemic. A global shortage in semiconductor components, specifically microchips and processors, are rocking companies from carmakers to, of course, consumer electronics manufacturers. Smartphone OEMs seem to be taking things in stride but the shortage may have finally caught up with Samsung whose newest mid-range phones are now reportedly delayed because of that.

Continue Reading

Apple's next big black eye to Qualcomm may come sooner than many expected, with the iPhone tipped to switch to a homegrown 5G modem design in 2023 according to a new analyst report. Although Apple designs a significant number of iPhone components itself, including the primary A-series chipset, it still relies on third-party modems for the smartphones.

Continue Reading

Manufacturers and network operators have been pushing 5G technology hard, even throughout a pandemic that forced some industries to stall for a while. Now it seems, however, that one of the most critical pieces of hardware that enables that technology for users might be putting them at risk as well. Qualcomm's 5G modem reportedly has a very severe flaw that can be exploited through Android, putting potentially hundreds of thousands of users at risk.

Continue Reading

Whispers of a new Chromebook with what could be a detachable OLED touchscreen and a significant uptick in connectivity and multimedia have emerged, promising a potential rival to Apple's iPad Pro. The new Chrome OS detachable, codenamed Homestar, is expected to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7c rather than an Intel processor.

Continue Reading

The past few years have seen various government agencies file complaints or lawsuits against giant tech companies but, back in 2017, that wasn't a common thing. That's what made the US FTC's decision to file an antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm back then a landmark case that would also rattle the mobile market in its wake. The FTC initially scored a victory in 2019 but lost on appeal last year. Instead of the planned request for review, however, this year's FTC has decided not to pursue the case further, practically letting Qualcomm get away with the anticompetitive practices it was accused of.

Continue Reading

Almost mirroring the old Intel and AMD rivalry, Qualcomm and MediaTek have traditionally been at it since the smartphone market exploded years ago. MediaTek was regarded as having more affordable options, though often with inferior performance. To its credit, it has been improving both in performance and features and it seems that its investments have finally paid off now that it has wrested the mobile chipset market crown from Qualcomm, at least in 2020.

Continue Reading