The Snapdragon 835 is the latest flagship processor from Qualcomm, and it has some rather beefy specs. It’s definitely an upgrade over the Snapdragon 820 and Snapdragon 821 which the company released in 2016. With the Snapdragon 835, the company is returning to an octa-core setup. The SoC is using Qualcomm’s new Kryo 280 CPU which has four performance cores that run up to 2.45GHz and then four efficiency cores which run up to 1.9GHz. This is paired with the Adreno 540 GPU, which builds on the Adreno 530 that was in the Snapdragon 820 last year, it’s a faster and better GPU. It also has support for OpenGL ES 3.2, full OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan and DX12. Keep in mind that this SoC is on a 10-nanometer process, so it’s fairly small processor, which makes it efficient but also allows more room inside your smartphone for manufacturers to add more battery or other internals.
Qualcomm also has the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem integrated with the Snapdragon 835. This does support Category 16 LTE, which boasts speeds of up to 1Gbps per second, along with Category 13 LTE support which can handle upload speeds up to 150Mbps. Speaking of connectivity, there is also integrated 2×2 11ac MU-MIMO, which makes it about 50% smaller, and means that your phone is going to use about 60% less power for WiFi. It also offers up to 4.6Gbps per second speeds. Bluetooth 5 was announced just a few weeks ago, and it is also included in the Snapdragon 835.
When it comes to cameras, the Snapdragon 835 can support up to a 32-megapixel camera, or two 16-megapixel camera. This is thanks to the Qualcomm Spectra 180 ISP. It does also have 14-bit hybrid auto-focus. It can use laser, contrast, structured light, and dual-phase detection autofocus. With Qualcomm’s Clear Sight, you’ll get some incredible pictures. There is support for 4K video capture at up to 30 frames-per-second, and then 4K video playback is capable at up to 60 frames-per-second. Of course, we cannot forget Quick Charge 4.0. This is the latest iteration of their quick charging standard which is both more efficient and faster at charging than Quick Charge 3.0 was. Qualcomm says that it is 20% faster than Quick Charge 3.0 and 30% more efficient. The Snapdragon 835 is already in manufacturers hands and Qualcomm expects to see devices with this processor coming in the first half of the year.