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Qualcomm releases Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 with premium features at a lower price

Qualcomm quietly unveiled the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip, bringing flagship features, better AI, and gaming support to 2025 phones.

If you follow Qualcommโ€™s Snapdragon chips, youโ€™ll know the company has several levels of phone processors. Over the weekend, Qualcomm quietly released its latest version in the flagship-lite categoryโ€”the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4. This chip is designed for people who want high-end performance without paying the full price of a flagship model. It’s the follow-up to 2024โ€™s Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 and promises some serious improvements.

The โ€œsโ€ in the name means this chip sits between Qualcommโ€™s top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite and its more affordable Snapdragon 7 series. While people were expecting a refresh, the features in this new version are still quite impressive โ€“ and, in some cases, surprising.

Big boosts in performance and features

Even though Qualcomm has already launched new Oryon CPUs in some of its chips for phones and laptops, the company isnโ€™t retiring its older ones yet. The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 uses an 8-core Kyro CPU. It includes one powerful Cortex-X4 core running at 3.2GHz, three Cortex-A720 cores at 3.0GHz, two more A720 cores at 2.8GHz, and two slower ones at 2.0GHz. This setup balances strong performance with good energy use.

According to Qualcommโ€™s brief, compared to its previous version, you can expect up to 39% better CPU performance, a 49% jump in graphics (GPU), and a 44% boost in AI processing. These numbers suggest the chip is much faster and smarter than before.

The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 also borrows top-tier features from the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The 18-bit Triple AI Image Signal Processor (ISP) lets your phone use three cameras simultaneously and apply AI enhancements. Thereโ€™s also 4K Limitless Segmentation, which allows real-time adjustments to over 250 objects in a video or photo.

Regarding AI, Qualcomm has doubled the chipโ€™s shared memory size, making it faster and better at handling advanced tasks like real-time translation, image editing, and smart camera effects.

Better connectivity, gaming, and everyday use

Youโ€™ll also get solid future-proofing when it comes to connectivity. The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 supports Bluetooth 6.0 and Wi-Fi 7, delivering speeds of up to 5.8Gbps. It uses the Snapdragon X75 5G modem โ€“ a newer and advanced option, although not quite as cutting-edge as the Snapdragon X80 used in the Elite version.

If you enjoy mobile gaming, this chip might be what youโ€™re after. It comes with all the Snapdragon Elite Gaming features, which means smooth gameplay, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and support for high-end visuals, just like youโ€™d find in a top-end phone.

Other features worth noting include support for fast UFS 4.0 storage, USB 3.1 Gen 2, LPDDR5X RAM up to 4,800MHz, and Qualcommโ€™s Quick Charge 5.0. It can also power WQHD+ displays up to 144Hz, making it ideal for high-resolution, fast-refresh screens.

The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is a strong choice if you want a high-performance phone but donโ€™t need all the extras of the most expensive models. It offers many of the best features from Qualcommโ€™s flagship chip but in a more affordable package.

Qualcomm confirmed that this new processor will soon be found in phones from Xiaomi, OPPO, Meizu, and others. While thereโ€™s no exact release date, the first phones with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 are expected to arrive later in the year.

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