Qualcomm has launched the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 – a compelling new tier that distills the flagship 8 Gen 3’s capabilities into a more affordable SoC tailored for the burgeoning “sub-flagship” Android device segment.
Table of Contents
Qualcomm Unveils 8S Gen 3 Chip for Premium Yet Accessible Android Smartphones
Straddling the rarefied apex occupied by Qualcomm’s ultimate 8-series offerings and the increasingly powerful 7-series, the 8S Gen 3 represents a calculated play to court smartphone manufacturers aiming to deliver premium experiences at more accessible price points.
At its core, the chip retains key pillars of the 8 Gen 3’s performance DNA – an Adreno GPU of comparable prowess, hardware-accelerated ray tracing for photorealistic gaming, and crucially, support for on-device generative AI workloads including large language models up to 10 billion parameters. However, judicious tailoring is evident, with a slightly lower-clocked 3.0GHz prime CPU core and a previous-generation X70 5G modem.
“Each Snapdragon high-level tier can be broken down into three sub-categories,” elucidated Deepu John, Qualcomm’s senior director of product management, articulating a nuanced product hierarchy with the 8S Gen 3 occupying the middle tier beneath a prospective, unannounced 8 Gen 3 “Plus” variant.
This stratified silicon strategy banks on an industry trajectory where democratized generative AI, accelerated graphics, and 5G connectivity are no longer confined to the uncompromising bleeding edge, but rather prerequisites for premium mass-market smartphone experiences.
While sacrificing the full, unadulterated prowess of Qualcomm’s admittedly niche ultra-flagship SoCs, the 8S Gen 3 seemingly prioritizes a more lucrative sweetspot – melding aspirational technological capabilities with price pragmatism that could spur adoption among Android brands like Honor, iQOO, Realme, Redmi and Xiaomi.
