Qualcomm announced a new processor for cell phones: Qualcomm Snapdragon 870, a successor to last year’s Snapdragon 865 and 865 Plus models. To be clear, the 870 is not a new state-of-the-art design – this title goes to the Snapdragon 888, which brings much more substantial improvements in performance and new features.
The 870, on the other hand, is virtually identical to the 865 and 865 Plus, with the same design up to the Kryo 585 CPU and Adreno 650 GPU cores. The 870 is clocked at 3.2 GHz, however, making it about 10 percent faster than the original 2.84 GHz 865 and about 3 percent faster than the 865 Plus (which offered speeds 3.1 GHz). Think of it almost like a Snapdragon 865 Plus-plus.
Qualcomm says the reason for the new chip is a response to the demands of the manufacturer and the market. The 870 is designed for companies that want to offer a top-notch processor, but don’t need the absolute best features that the Snapdragon 888 offers and the higher price it requires. Instead, the company says it expects Snapdragon 870 phones to price below $ 800 (although, confusingly, we’ve seen Snapdragon 888 phones like the $ 799 Galaxy S21 start to reach that range).
Presumably, there is also a marketing aspect here: the new Snapdragon 870 brand and the modest (albeit real) speed improvements over the Snapdragon 865 Plus mean that companies using the chip on their phones get a “new” 2021 chip to brag according to the specifications sheets, without the concern of being looked at by customers for having an “outdated” or “old” processor like the 865 or 865 Plus.
Qualcomm says the first Snapdragon 870 phones are expected to be available in the first quarter of this year, with Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo and Xiaomi among the list of manufacturers planning to use the new processor in their devices.