Update: OnePlus has now confirmed its next flagship phone will be the first to feature the Snapdragon 855.
Qualcomm's newly-announced Snapdragon 855 chipset has just been unveiled at the company's own Snapdragon Summit.
The new chipset enables 5G connectivity in upcoming smartphones as well as a variety of other upgrades including improved gaming and enhanced artificial intelligence.
So far we've only seen a teaser of the upgrades the Snapdragon 855 will bring, but we hope to learn more about what the chipset can do in the coming days.
Qualcomm may not be a company you're very familiar with, but if you own a top-end Android phone it's likely some of the company's tech is inside your device. In fact, a lot of manufacturers embrace Qualcomm's processing tech.
We're expecting to see the new Snapdragon 855 chipset in a variety of top-end phones throughout 2019 and beyond, and we've had a think about the most likely up-and-coming devices that will likely include the cutting-edge chipset.
- Everything we know so far about the Snapdragon 855
- Here's the first 5G smartphone and, no, you can't buy it
OnePlus 7
Every OnePlus phone so far has featured a Qualcomm chipset, so we already expected the phone to feature the chipset and now the company has confirmed that'll be the case.
So far, OnePlus has just referred to it as its next phone but we can assume this will be the OnePlus 7. That said, a number of reports have said the OnePlus 7 will include the latest Snapdragon chipset but it won't be capable of 5G.
The report claims the company will save 5G for an upcoming device set to be released later in 2019, so you may have to wait a while to get the biggest benefit from the Snapdragon 855.
OnePlus has confirmed it plans to release the first commercially available 5G phone in the UK in partnership with EE, but exactly when that will be remains unclear. We hope to learn more about this in early 2019.
Samsung Galaxy S10
Rumors of the Samsung Galaxy S10 are beginning to gather steam, and the company is almost certain to use the new Snapdragon 855 in some versions of this handset.
Samsung often only includes a Snapdragon chipset in certain versions of its flagship devices. For example, with the Samsung Galaxy S9 range, the company only used the Qualcomm chipset in the US version and some other variants of the device.
If you live in Europe, you were only able to buy the version of the phone with an Exynos 9810 inside. (It's unclear if this pattern will continue with the S10.) Samsung is at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2019 where the Snapdragon 855 has been unveiled, which we’re taking that to mean the company is almost certain to include the new Snapdragon on its next flagship.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 Plus are both rumored for a February 2019 release with MWC 2019 looking to be the time we'll probably see the phones unveiled. It’s also likely this chipset will be included in the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 later in the year too.
Google Pixel 4
Google aren’t at the Snapdragon Summit specifically, but the company has embraced Qualcomm’s processing tech for the entire Pixel series so far.
We currently don’t expect to hear about the Google Pixel 4 until late in 2019, but it’s almost certain to feature this top-end chipset from Qualcomm.
LG G8
Exactly when LG will announce its next flagship phone is a little up in the air, but we may see it at Mobile World Congress and it’s likely to feature the Snapdragon 855.
That’s because every recent flagship phone from LG has featured the top-end Qualcomm chipset at the time, so we'd expect the same from the LG G8.
Moto Z4
Despite launching while the Snapdragon 845 was readily available in competing devices, the Moto Z3 came with the older Snapdragon 835 chipset inside. Does that mean the next phone from Motorola will come with the Snapdragon 845 rather than the newly launched chipset? We don’t think so.
According to a source speaking with XDA Developers, the Moto Z4 is in development and it will feature a new chipset from Qualcomm. The report from late November says the phone will feature the Snapdragon 8150, which was a rumored codename for the chipset we now know to be the Snapdragon 855.
Rumors for the phone are few and far between at the moment, but when we do hear about the Moto Z4 we can expect to see it feature this chipset as its brains.
Something HTC?
Exactly what HTC is going to do in the world of smartphones right now is very unclear, but we expect the company to keep embracing the top-end processing tech for its next-gen phone.
Hopefully we hear from the company at Mobile World Congress this year, and if we do hear about a sequel to the HTC U12 Plus we'd expect it to feature a Qualcomm chipset.
Sony Xperia XZ4
We've seen a few specs leak about the Sony Xperia XZ4, but so far there hasn't been any news on the chipset that will be inside. If Sony follows its normal pattern for smartphone announcements we can expect it to be one of the first to embrace the Snapdragon 855.
If the company is planning to unveil the Xperia XZ4 at MWC 2019, we can expect the company to include the Snapdragon 855 inside as the brains behind everything it can do.
