Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 – A Big Leap from the S810

December 29, 2015

Qualcomm formally launched the new Snapdragon 820 SoC. After experiencing troubles with the S810, which was widely believed to have an overheating problem, Qualcomm's release of the new SoC may just be on schedule at this critical point. Read on to find out the the details of the new Snapdragon 820.

Snapdragon 820

New and Improved Features

Although 2k displays are sufficient for general usage such as web browsing, the S820 is designed to support 4k displays (although S820 is not the first Snapdragon chip to do that), and the quality of display has more realistic colour, shadows and lighting. Enhanced imaging is also a part of the S820, as it uses Heterogeneous Signal Processing, which Qualcomm says will mirror what your eyes see. Low light photography is also improved, as Qualcomm made software enhancements that reduces noise and increase overall detail in situations such as these. Audio performance is also one of the improvements of the S820. It boasts of 3D audio, that gives a surround sound effect with headphones, which basically works even with those ones you get along with your smartphone.

The Snapdragon 820 is also packed with the new X12 LTE Modem, capable of handling download speeds of up to 600Mbps and an upload speed maxed at 150Mbps. Though the speeds may rely on your current network, users are assured of a future-proof phone than can deliver very fast streaming, surfing and downloading apps. The S820 also comes with TruSignal Antenna Boost, capable of adjusting the way signals are received and therefore, saving a lot of battery life and improving overall call quality brought by poor phone signals.

 Snapdragon 820

Apart from these things, the most important part is to know how the S820 fares within the SoC market. Well, the S820 has a quad-core CPU with 64-bit Kryo cores, clocked up to 2.2GHz. Comparing it with the S810, Qualcomm states that the CPU in S820 can deliver twice the performance, which is amazing. Its use of Adreno 530 is said to make 40% improvement to power usage, graphic and compute capabilities, compared to the S810's 430. In addition, heavy users will be so glad to know that the battery efficiency of the S820 is 30% better than the S810, and it also supports Quick Charge 3.0 technology. Qualcomm has also improved thermal efficiency with the S820, which removes the problems experienced with its predecessor.

Snapdragon 820 is a much-needed leap from the S810. Capable of delivering overall high-quality performance, the S820 is definitely one of the most (if not the most) powerful SoC's in the smartphone world today. Expect this SoC to be used on smartphones in 2016.