Qualcomm today announced its next flagship mobile platform, the Snapdragon 888, which it says offers dramatic performance improvements over its predecessors.

“Creating premium experiences takes a relentless focus on innovation,”  Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon said in a prepared statement. “It takes long term commitment, even in the face of immense uncertainty. It takes an organization that’s focused on tomorrow, to continue to deliver the technologies that redefine premium experiences.”

Qualcomm normally unveils its latest Snapdragon 8-series chipset, along with other innovations, at a tech summit in Hawaii, but with COVID-19 coming around for another pass, the event is, of course, virtual this year.

The Snapdragon 888 includes the third-generation Snapdragon X60 5G modem system, which offers both mmWave and sub-6 across all major bands worldwide, as well as support for 5G carrier aggregation, global multi-SIM, and Dynamic Spectrum Sharing. It also features the 6th-generation Qualcomm AI Engine, with its completely re-engineered Qualcomm Hexagon processor, for what the firm calls “a pivotal leap forward in AI.”

And perhaps most interesting, the new chipset includes Qualcomm Spectra capabilities aimed at computational photography that deliver a 35 percent performance boost over earlier chipsets.

The Snapdragon 888 will appear in flagship smartphones beginning in early 2021, most likely starting with the Samsung Galaxy S21 in January.

Tagged with Qualcomm, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888