Pocophone F2 release date delay, specs rumors: Is Xiaomi waiting for Snapdragon 860 before announcing the device?

Many smartphone fans around the world were eager to hear any news from Xiaomi regarding the development and release of Pocophone F2 this year. The brand’s first smartphone was so successful in the global market that tech consumers were certain Xiaomi would release another Poco-labeled device a year since the first one debuted.

However, 2019 is now down to barely two months, and Xiaomi has yet to address all the speculations and demands to hear any update about the Pocophone F2. Some have suggested that the announcement of the device might be dependent on the launch of the newest Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 series mobile system-on-chip.

Pocophone F2 release date: What’s causing the delay in announcing the device?

One of the reasons why Pocophone F2’s predecessor was a big market success was because of its core specs and its pricing. The device was powered with an octa-core Snapdragon 845 clocking at 2.8 GHz. It was the same processor used on other premium devices released in 2018. But the Poco F1 was priced at less than $300, which was about half the price of the high-end smartphones that run on the same CPU.

There were speculations that Xiaomi might have been waiting for the announcement of the Snapdragon 855+ mobile platform before launching Pocophone F2. But that SoC was launched back in June, and there are still no traces of Pocophone F2 anywhere on the official Xiaomi pages.

Is it then possible that the company is actually waiting for the Snapdragon 860, which is rumored to be announced next month, to include it in the Pocophone F2 specs if it eyes a late 2019 or early 2020 launch? That sounds like a stretch at this point.

Pocophone F2 specs: Will it feature the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC?

It is also important to note that when the Pocophone F2’s predecessor was announced in August 2018, it did not have the best of the Snapdragon 800 series. At the time, Qualcomm had already unveiled the Snapdragon 850 for a couple of months. But the Pocophone F1 was released with only the second-best SoC – the Snapdragon 845 that point.

With the Snapdragon 860 anticipated to be unveiled next month, it is then more likely for Pocophone F2 to have the Snapdragon 855+ chip. Reports are also expecting Xiaomi to improve the device’s RAM capacity up to at least 6GB. Since the MIUI 11 already rolled out on the Poco F1, a successor device will most likely ship with this operating system as well.