The Xiaomi Mi Note 3 is due to be released this fall, and the latest rumor is pointing towards it using the Snapdragon 836 chipset, instead of Qualcomm’s current high-end flagship the Snapdragon 835 SoC. The Mi Note 3 isn’t the first device to be rumored to sport the Snapdragon 836, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 is also rumored to sport this chipset over the Snapdragon 835. And if Qualcomm goes to Samsung once again to produce this chipset (like it has with the Snapdragon 820 and 835), it’s very possible that Samsung would have exclusivity over it again. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 is also slated to sport the Snapdragon 836, seeing as Xiaomi will likely announce the two together, and both will likely sport relatively the same specs, aside from the displays, cameras and batteries.
The Snapdragon 836 isn’t a huge upgrade over the Snapdragon 835, as you can tell by the small bump in numbers there. It’s basically an overclocked Snapdragon 835 – based on the information that is currently available. That was the same difference between the Snapdragon 820 and 821 last year, so there is precedent here. The Snapdragon 835 is already a pretty powerful process, that’s also good on battery life. Xiaomi has used the Snapdragon 835 in its Mi 6 smartphone that it announced back in April. Xiaomi was the first to launch a smartphone with this new chipset in China.
Xiaomi’s Mi Note 3 has some pretty big shoes to fill. After the very successful Xiaomi Mi Note 2 from last year. The Mi Note 2 got a bit of flack for having a curved display, many thought it looked like a Galaxy S7 Edge, due to that curved display. The Mi Note 2 also had 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage in the global version. Although the impressive part about the global version was the fact that it actually had support for virtually every 4G LTE band used around the world, that included all of the bands in the US (even T-Mobile’s band 12 that a lot of unlocked smartphones forget to support). Now the Mi Note 3 has a tall order, to be a better smartphone than its predecessor, but the Snapdragon 836 might make it a tad easier.