Qualcomm has taken the wraps off its newest flagship chipset. Falling in line with last year’s release pattern for the Snapdragon 855 and 855 Plus, the company has unveiled the Snapdragon 865 Plus which serves as an upgraded version of the 865. There are no crazy upgrades in store for the 865 Plus – in fact, Qualcomm says you can expect just a 10 percent boost in performance compared to the standard 865 SoC. The CPU is now clocked at 3.1GHz which is 10 percent more than the 865, the Adreno 650 GPU is now 10 percent faster, and Wi-Fi speeds can now reached 3.6Gbps.
All of that seems… fine. But the question remains: how many phones will actually take advantage of it? Historically, any “Plus” variant of a Snapdragon chipset is only featured in a select lineup of gaming phones. That’s not on purpose, by the way. Gaming companies just tend to use whatever the fastest chip is they can get from Qualcomm. But like the Snapdragon 855 Plus, many new Android phones for consumers simply won’t use the chipset. The upcoming Galaxy Note 20 is a prime example. Rumors point to it using the standard 865, not its faster sibling.
For the sake of mentioning it, there’s a chance OnePlus will put out a phone that comes with the Snapdragon 865 Plus, but so far we haven’t heard any rumors about one. In other words, don’t hold your breath.
Qualcomm says the first phones with an 865 Plus will start shipping in Q3 2020.
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