Every year, flagships become more expensive. However, for the first time, we’re seeing this happening in Chinese flagships that always proved to be cheaper than global companies. For instance, we have Xiaomi Mi 10 series which stepped in a new price segment. According to a report, this is a trend that will continue in the next year.
This year, smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 865 are selling for much higher than their predecessors. One of the reason is that the Snapdragon 865 is much more expensive than its predecessor. According to a report from South-Korea, things will be worse in the next year as costumers will need to pay even more for flagship smartphones.
According to the source, an order document signed by Xiaomi revealed that the price of the Snapdragon 875 Mobile Platform is around $250. This price includes both the application processor and the Snapdragon X60 5G modem. The source states that the company is making some adjustments regarding the price of its future flagships that are set to include Qualcomm’s processor.
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Currently, the Snapdragon 865 ships to manufacturers for between $150 and $160. This means that the Snapdragon 875 is about $100 more expensive than its predecessor. If companies decided to apply this very same difference than we would be seeing 2021 flagships being $100 more expensive than this year. Of course, there are a lot of different factors to account for before determining the price of a smartphone. Of course, more advanced technologies will also affect the price.
The Snapdragon 875 may determine a new performance standard thanks to Cortex-X1 core
The Snapdragon 875 SoC will feature a Super-Core Cortex-X1 processor that offers 30% more performance than the Cortex-A77. This super-core will be combined with three Cortex-A78 cores and four efficiency cores in a 1+3+4 core arrangement. The Cortex X1 technology was announced this year by ARM. We expect it to be present in several 2021 flagship SoCs. It surely represents a new standard in terms of performance for flagships. But is it enough to justify a huge price hike?
While Xiaomi flagships are becoming more expensive every year, the company still offers some of the cheapest smartphones under its sub-brand Redmi. There are even flagships like the Redmi K30 Pro coming with a more affordable price tag. But worth noting that even the Redmi K30 Pro is much more expensive than its predecessor. Apparently there is no way to control this trend of expensive phones.
