We have not even heard anything solid about the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 -Smartphone -chip – Keep your eyes open for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit on September 23 – but we already receive a number of fascinating information about the potential successor.
According to the established Tech Tipster Digital Chat Station, Qualcomm’s flagship chip at the end of 2026 – the Qualcomm SM8950 codes – will come in two different flavors.
With the switch to a new TSMC 2NM process, it is predicted that the production costs will rise. That increased price will have to be passed on to the devices themselves, probably leading to a dual approach.
De Leaker compares this with the current situation with the iPhone range from Apple. Currently, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus run on the Apple A18 chip, while the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max Run on the more powerful A18 Pro.
The Pro has the same CPU as the non-Pro chip, but with more cache. It also has an extra GPU core.
Apple
Two-layers 2027
With this cost-induced split, we can probably look forward to a Samsung Galaxy S27 that runs on the lesser ‘non-Pro’ version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite 3 (whatever it turns out to be), while the Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra-Runs on the full variant.
Of course next year’s Samsung Galaxy S26 series is also tipped for its own dual processor supply, although that is instead of regional rather than model-based lines.
Anyway, it seems likely that the days of performance parity of the £ 800/$ 800 class up to the £ 1,300/$ 1,300 Uber flag genitese class (and indeed in the £ 1,800/$ 1,800 foldable category) are almost used up. There is a completely new implementation layer income.
Nord switches to Snapdragon
In other Snapdragon news, the first benchmark scores for the OnePlus Nord 5 are apparently leaked online -and they are indeed very encouraging.
It seems that instead of the MediaTek Dimensity 9400E chip that was rumors for OnePlus’s next mid-ranger, it runs on a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 instead. We have previously seen this in the Honor 200 Pro and the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra, and it is a very capable runner for a mid-range phone.
And yes, a single-core score of 1,977 and a multi-core score of 5,090 beats the Pixel 9A conveniently, at least according to our tests.
