Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 820 late last year. And announced that they had over 80 devices that would be powered by the Snapdragon 820, coming out in 2016. We’ve heard plenty of rumors that Samsung was going to get an exclusive on the Snapdragon 820, for a month or so. But Qualcomm, today, at their press conference at CES confirmed that rumor was false. And stated that the first smartphone with the Snapdragon 820 would be the Letv Le Max Pro. Letv is a Chinese manufacturer that is actually looking to launch their portfolio of smartphones here in the States at CES. So far they’ve made no announcements, however CES doesn’t officially start until tomorrow.
The Letv Le Max Pro is not official, but should be announced shortly. It’s looking to be a pretty high-end smartphone from Letv. Qualcomm also confirmed that it will sport an Ultrasonic Fingerprint Sensor, using Qualcomm’s Sense ID. Which Qualcomm demoed at Mobile World Congress last March in Barcelona. It’s a more secure fingerprint sensor, as you can still unlock your phone when you have dirt on your hands, or they are wet. It can also be done without adding in another button. Like Huawei, and Samsung have had to do with their smartphones. With Sense ID, you can’t quite put the sensor under the screen, but Qualcomm did confirm to us that they are working on that. Which would be a very cool addition.
Currently, Qualcomm is still in the middle of their press conference. However they have announced two new processors, which will be making their way into automobiles – so far their partner is just Audi – as early as the 2017 model year. Cars seem to be the big theme this year at CES. NVIDIA’s press conference last night was all about cars, Ford had a pretty big event this morning and now Qualcomm producing system-on-a-chip for cars. It’s been a pretty exciting few days at CES already, and the show floor hasn’t even opened up just yet. Stay tuned, as we’ll be bringing you much more from Qualcomm’s keynote as well as the rest of the press conferences today at CES. Which include Samsung, Sony and Intel.