Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones: Companies confirm their upcoming flagships will include Qualcomm’s new premium mobile SoC

Qualcomm unveiled its next-generation of premium mobile SoC, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, last week. As expected, it was followed by a series of announcements from various Android phone manufacturers, confirming that their upcoming flagship phones will be powered by the Qualcomm chip.

The official technical specifications for Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 indicate it is powered by the Cortex-X3 “Prime” core with up to 3.2GHz speed, along with four 2.8GHz performance cores and 2.0GHz efficiency cores. Qualcomm also confirmed it would support Wi-Fi 7 connectivity that can deliver up to 5.8 GB/s speed.

While the lineup of smartphones to include Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is quite predictable, there is an unspoken race on which company will launch the first device to carry the SoC. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said in a Weibo post that the Xiaomi 13 series would bring the first smartphone powered by the SoC.

Oppo, however, made the same claim on the Chinese social media platform. A translation of the company’s announcement (via Android Police) reportedly indicates that Oppo expects the OnePlus 11 “will be the first” Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered device in the market.

Whichever of the Xiaomi 13 and the OnePlus 11 will be the real first smartphone with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 should be revealed soon. Both companies usually unveil their newest flagship phones toward the end of the year. But general sales are traditionally limited to the Chinese market for a few months before the phones are released in other regions.

Motorola has also confirmed that its upcoming flagship Moto X40 will launch with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Like Xiaomi and OnePlus, Motorola also typically launches a new flagship series in December in China before the device comes to other global markets under a new name. The Moto X40 is rumored to include two 50MP cameras (wide and ultrawide), a 12MP telephoto sensor, and retain a 5000mAh battery.

Samsung is not expected to make the same announcement as the companies mentioned above. But its annual Galaxy S releases have used the latest Snapdragon 8-series chip in select territories, including the U.S. and South Korea. But Samsung is widely rumored to make significant changes next year.

All Galaxy S23 units to be shipped worldwide are rumored to include Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, suggesting Samsung will skip its in-house Exynos chip. But a recent report also suggested that Samsung and Qualcomm may have partnered to use an overclocked version of the chip exclusive for the Galaxy S23 series.