Qualcomm today announced a rather unexpected addition to their Snapdragon family of processors, the Snapdragon 801. As you can make out from the name itself, the chipset is basically a more powerful and advanced version of the trending Snapdragon 800.
But, there’s more. The Snapdragon 801 is pin-to-pin compatible with the Snapdragon 800, meaning manufacturers can opt for the Snapdragon 801 without making any changes to the PCB design. It also is software compatible, which means the same ROM/firmware can be used to run Snapdragon 801 and Snapdragon 800 devices.
Apart from the above mentioned ‘convenience’ factors, the Snapdragon 801 also brings better performance. Ubergizmo reports that the Snapdragon 801 has a 45% faster camera sensor, 28% faster graphics and 14% faster CPU (2.45GHz as opposed to 2.26GHz & 2.36GHz on Snapdragon 800) when compared to the Snapdragon 800. This is a result of overall improvements on various sub-systems in the chipset, including:
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- 1080p H.265 Video Support (in software)
- eMMC 5.0 (from eMMC 4.5)
- Camera: Larger sensor support for better quality images
- Camera: Improved image post processing for better editing
- Dual SIM support
With the above mentioned improvements, especially dual SIM support, it is clear Qualcomm are eyeing emerging markets which currently are dominated by MediaTek based devices.
Qualcomm have indeed stepped on the accelerator with a wave of chipset releases, including the Snapdragon 801, 64-bit Snapdragon 615 and Snapdragon 610.
[Sources – 1, 2]
