The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 has been officially announced and will power the flagship smartphones of 2024. The 8s Gen 3 offers a range of premium Snapdragon features without the high cost associated with the flagship 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 3 chips. It is a 4nm chip with a Cortex-X4 prime core clocked at 3.0GHz, four performance cores at 2.8GHz, and three efficiency cores at 2.0GHz. It supports up to 24 GB LPDDR5x RAM (up to 4,200 MHz) and UFS 4.0 storage.
When it comes to connectivity, the 8s Gen 3 does USB 3.1 Gen 2 over USB-C. Generative AI is a key feature as new applications have grown in popularity, despite revealing new issues. The 8s chip can run popular AI models like Llama 2, Baichuan-7B, and Gemini Nano (recently discovered to not be compatible with Pixel 8 devices – one of the mentioned issues). It supports models with up to 10 billion parameters. While the s model may not be as fast as the 8 Gen 3 for certain tasks, it stands out from the older 8 Gen 2 with its on-device AI support.
One of the first smartphones to feature the new chip is the Motorola Edge 50 Pro (known as the Edge+ 2024 in the United States). It will boast a 6.7” display with Full HD+ resolution and a 165Hz refresh rate, along with 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. The launch date is confirmed for April 3rd.
Qualcomm has focused on generative AI, image processing for photos and videos, and top-of-the-line gaming features.
Moving on to the iPhone 16 series, all four iPhone 16 models will feature thinner bezels. Apple has reportedly found a way to reduce the bezels, with all display vendors adopting the technology. Screen sizes will increase to 6.27” and 6.85” from 6.1” and 6.7”, resulting in larger phones, but cutting the bezels will help to mitigate the overall size increase.
Apple also released a video discussing how the base 128GB storage on the iPhone 15 offers “a lot of storage for a lot of photos.” Be sure to check out the video. See you next week!