The CES 2017 held earlier this month has unveiled another set of serious tech upgrades demonstrated or launched by more than 3,800 companies. Among them is SoC behemoth, Qualcomm, which launched its latest mobile processor, the Snapdragon 835.
The 835 is the successor to the 820/821 which was the chipset used in several flagship phones launched within the last couple of years. Although many are enjoying the capabilities of the 821, the specs recorded for the 835 shows just show much the upcoming chipset has advanced.
Mobile and Apps did a side by side comparison between the two, and it’s clear that the upgrade improved several of its features. It’s claimed that the 835 is around 27 percent more powerful than its predecessor, albeit being the first of its kind sporting the 10nm size range. That’s around 30 percent smaller than the 821’s 14nm dimension.
At its heart will be the octa-core Kryo 280 CPUs comprised of four 2.45GHz performance cores and four 1.9GHz efficiency cores. Backing it up will be an Adreno 540 GPU which supports full OpenCL 2.0, OpenGL ES 3.2, DirectX 12 and Vulkan.
Power consumption has been reduced in the 835 as well, which is good news for heavy smartphone users. In a report by The Verge, it was specified that the 835 spends 25 percent less power than the 820/821. When translated to actual device usage, you can have up to two and a half hours more of run time under average use.
With all that power, running the current programs available or doing regular activities such as emails and web browsing will be a breeze. Graphics-heavy activities such as watching/creating/editing media and gaming will benefit the most, seeing as these require the most power and performance.
The next gen resolution, 4K, is supported by the chipset. Given that OTT video services are now adding 4K content each month, like Netflix which already has more than twenty 4K films and TV shows in its archive, you will have no problem watching on devices which sport the 835. That’s if the device rocks an Ultra HD screen as well.
In terms of gaming, 4K resolution seems to be limited to consoles for now, and fans of VR titles have yet to enjoy it, as it’s still too early to tell how the chipset will perform in that regard. But for other mobile games on the market today, the 835 will be able to handle all of them smoothly. Regardless if you want to gun down zombies in FPS Dead Trigger 2 or enjoy something as casual as commercially licensed slot games from Slingo modeled on the Jurassic Park franchise, you won’t have any problems running games. The only thing you’ll have to worry about is when your device runs low on power. Due to the games not being graphic-intensive they will run seamlessly on the 835 without any lag.
What’s even more impressive is that the 835 will support the new Quick Charge (QC) 4.0 that’s compatible with the new type-C USB port. A claim was made that QC 4.0 will follow the 5:5 ratio, wherein it can give your device up to five hours of juice after just five minutes of charging.
As for the upcoming devices which will be installed on the 835, the Galaxy S8 which was talked about in a previous post has been verified by Business Korea to come with the new chipset. HTC’s next flagship, HTC Ocean, will also be powered by the 835. Stay tuned for this year’s Mobile World Congress which will be in Barcelona from Feb 27 to March 2 for more new stuff about smartphones and other mobile gadgets.
For full details of 835’s specs, you can visit Qualcomm’s page.
Article Contributed by Henry Evans
Henry Evans is an IT specialist and a certified geek. When not at work or cooped up in his room playing RPGs and reading comic books, you’ll find him prowling for the coolest tech stuff at expos and conventions.