After a number of leaks started predicting that flagship smartphones released during the latter half of the year will be sporting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 836 chip, almost everyone thought that the Qualcomm was going to do the same thing it did last year when it released a faster version of the SD 820 SOC; the SD 821. However, now that both the Galaxy Note 8 and the Pixel 2 (more or less) has been confirmed to sport the SD 835 chip, we can rest assured that it was indeed a myth.

If you are disappointed, know that there is no reason to be! After all, the SD 835 is a very capable chip and until the SD 845 comes out next year, it will continue to be one of the most powerful smartphone chips ever created. Also, it makes absolutely no sense to release two flagship chips in the same year, unless there's anything wrong with the first one. Since the Snapdragon 835 is as close to perfection as it can be both in terms of power usage and performance, we would say that there's nothing to worry about at all.

Via: The Android Soul

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

Vivo has apparently done what Samsung could not and Apple was only planning to. The famous in-screen fingerprint scanner which has so far eluded all devices till date, has been brought forth and showcased on a Vivo smartphone.

The Qualcomm fingerprint scanner which was put into effect at the show on a Vivo Xplay 6 prototype was announced earlier at the same show. It detects ultrasonic fingerprint signals through OLED displays up to 1200um and is more secure than any other fingerprint scanners that are available on smartphones at the moment. Check out the GIF image which we can now look at, thanks to Engadget.

The fingerprint scanner works underwater and doesn't care much even when your phone or your fingers are dirty. There are two points to be noted though. Engadget reports that the actual fingerprint recognition is much slower than what we are used to and also that the display was only able to detect the fingerprint from one particular place on the display. In theory however, the whole display should be able to detect your fingerprints flawlessly. Then again, this is just a prototype that we are looking at and things will definitely improve once the ultrasonic technology and the smartphone is ready for commercial release.

Via: Engadget

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

While the Galaxy Note 8 will obviously continue to be the talk of the town for months to come, the thing that must have caught your attention in the headline is most likely "Qualcomm Snapdragon 836!" Although we did see Qualcomm release two flagship chips last year; the SD 820 and the SD 821, it didn't seem like something that they would continue to do in the future as well. However, a new report is suggesting that the SD 836 will be a higher powered version of the present day SD 835 and it will be released by the end of the year.

Allegedly, the Snapdragon 836 will have a CPU clock speed of 2.5GHz and the GPU (which will most likely be the same Adreno 540) will boast of a 740MHz clock speed. If the American version of the Note 8 is powered by the SD 836, then does it mean that Samsung will release a newer Exynos chip with the Note 8? Probably not. Samsung just releases one chipset every year in the premium segment and there have been no indications to suggest that they will take a different route this year. As pointed out by the source itself, all of this should be taken with "a pinch of salt."

Source: SamMobile

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

We knew it was coming and now it's official. Qualcomm has publicly detailed the specifics of their latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 835. It will allow smartphone manufacturers to utilize better technology and equipments in the mobile phones of 2017 in terms of photography, machine learning and displays.

The CPU in the 835 chip is an octa-core, semi-custom Kryo 280 CPU core design with possible ARM Cortex-A73 cores powering it. The Kryo 280 system is divided into four cores with 1.9GHz clock speed for efficiency and four cores with 2.45GHz clock speed for performance. Take a look at the image below to understand some of the differences between the SD 835, the SD 821 and the SD 820.

Apart from providing a boost of about 20% over the SD 820, the SD 835 will also allow for much better battery efficiency. Qualcomm expects that around 80% of all the tasks usually performed by a smartphone will be handled by the comparatively low-powered CPU cores, thereby providing an additional two and a half hour of battery life, as compared to the SD 820. Let's not forget that all of this has a lot to do with Samsung's 10nm FinFET process, on which the new chips are being built.

The Adreno 540 GPU is similar to the Adreno 530 in architecture, but the faster trilinear filtering and GPGPU compute will lead to a 25% performance boost over the older GPU. In terms of display, it can support 10-bit color at 4K resolution with a constant 60fps frame rate. The Adreno 540 GPU can now handle 107.4 million colors (previously 16.8 million) as well. In summary, we would say that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 is the most powerful and revolutionary mobile chip yet. If you are interested in more technical details, check it out here.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

It is now official; Qualcomm's next flagship-grade SoC is coming to the Consumer Electronics Show next week. The debut was disclosed by Qualcomm itself on Twitter, when the company twitted, "We're powering up for #CES2017 with #Snapdragon 835."

As we reported earlier, the SD 835 chip is going to be based on Samsung's 10nm process and will be manufactured by Samsung as well. The Adreno 540 GPU within the chip is going to be 30% more powerful and 40% more power-efficient than the current-gen Qualcomm flagship GPU, the Adreno 530. The default clock speed of the CPU will be set at 2.2GHz, although, overclocking by some of the manufacturers is expected.

All devices powered by the SD 835 will support Quick Charge 4.0 for 5 hours of battery life in just 5 minutes. Plug it in for 15 minutes and your device should reach 50% from 0%, according to the claims put forward by the company. It would be interesting to see how much of this turns out to be true in real life though, as batteries do vary in size.

Although I am sure that most manufacturers will be opting for the Snapdragon 835 SoC as their preferred choice in 2017, as of now, only the Samsung Galaxy S8, the LG G6 and the Xiaomi Mi6 are guaranteed to host the chip.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)