When you think of smartphone processors, Qualcomm is quite probably the first company that comes to mind. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips have been powering smartphones and tablets for years, and are even fueling the majority of Android Wear-powered smartwatches. The Snapdragon 810 64-bit octa-core processor is an extremely powerful chip, but it seems to heat up a bit too much. Initial reports have been saying that the chip is getting way too hot, something Qualcomm denied over and over again, even though they did acknowledge that the chip is heating more than it should by comparing it to the unreleased Snapdragon 815. Anyhow, the cat is out of the bag now, the overheat issues were confirmed by the Japan-based carrier NTT DoCoMo a couple of days ago.
That being said, it seems like Xiaomi and HTC are also having issues with Qualcomm’s latest mobile SoC. New reports from Asia claim that the Xiaomi Mi 5 might get delayed because of the Snapdragon 810’s issues, and might even get replaced by the Snapdragon 820 when it becomes available. Something similar is happening to HTC as well, at least according to a report from Taiwan. It seems like the HTC J Butterfly is also having issues with the Snapdragon 810. There are a lot of Snapdragon 810-powered devices already available out in the market, including Sony’s Xperia Z4 / Z3+ handset and the HTC One M9. Recent reports claim that Sony is also experiencing such issues with their latest flagship thanks to Qualcomm’s processor.
Either way, things don’t look all that good for Qualcomm at the moment. It seems like the company made some serious mistakes when building the Snapdragon 810, and it’s affecting a number of devices at the moment. It remains to be seen what chip will power the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5, and when the device will launch. According to the latest available info, the Mi 5 is expected to launch in September, which means that it will arrive two months later than its predecessor, the Mi 4, which launched back in July 2014. Either way, stay tuned, we’ll report back as soon as some additional details surface either regarding the Snapdragon 810 or the Mi 5 launch.