The company behind all the processors that power our smartphones and tablets has come forward and refuted claims that the Snapdragon 810 is to be delayed. Last week, industry sources reported that Qualcomm were having some issues with the Snapdragon 810, specifically the RAM controller and heating issues, and that the new chipset could be delayed as a result. In last Friday’s Android Headliner, I wondered whether or not such a delay would have a big impact, and it turns out that this is a problem manufacturers like Samsung, no doubt eyeing up the the 810 for the upcoming Galaxy S6, won’t have to face.
TechRadar had been approached by a Qualcomm rep with the following statement; “We won’t comment on any of the rumor or speculation you referenced but I can tell you that everything with Snapdragon 810 remains on track and we expect commercial devices to be available in 1H 2015.” As is so often the case with Qualcomm, there’s no telling when the Snapdragon 810 and associated devices will launch in the first half of next year, giving us a six-month window to see big releases from HTC, Samsung and Sony. There’s a possibility that we still see manufacturers using the 810 launching towards the end of 1H 2015, but it’s fairly rare to see Qualcomm refute claims like this.
Still, this is good news for all of us looking forward to the next big thing from Qualcomm, a company whose Snapdragon 801 and 805 chips for high-end devices were fairly safe releases, despite their impressive performance. 2015 is shaping up to be a big year for smartphones and mobile hardware in general. ARM’s new Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 64-bit core designs will be hitting devices both at the high and not-so-high-end of the market and we should finally be able to see what 64-bit Android can do on hardware other than NVIDIA’s Tegra K1. Hopefully this all means that big launches like Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and the next HTC flagship will launch on time to get 2015 started on a high note.