Qualcomm finally announced its much talked about high-end processor, the Snapdragon 821. The company touts the processor to deliver 10% faster performance than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 820. The 820 SoC is currently powering flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5, HTC 10, OnePlus 3, Xiaomi Mi 5, and more.
Being the latest processor in the Snapdragon 800 series, the 821 speeds up to 2.4GHz with quad-core custom 64-bit Qualcomm Kryo CPUs, which is better than 2.2GHz in Snapdragon 820. Interestingly, the 821 also has quad-cores like the 820. However, the Snapdragon 820 featured two cores clocked at 1.6GHz, while the latest 821 is expected to have two cores clocked higher at 1.8GHz or even 2.0GHz.
Qualcomm revealed that Snapdragon 821-powered devices could debut in the second half of this year. As per the rumors, these devices could be HTC-backed Nexus and Samsung's upcoming Note 7.
Detailing its latest processor, Qualcomm said in its blog post,"Rather than replace the Snapdragon 820, the 821 is designed to complement and extend the competitive strengths of our Snapdragon 800 lineup. Because the Snapdragon 820 helped improve the user experience for mobile imaging, virtual reality, battery life, and connectivity speed and reliability, all the updates we’ve included in Snapdragon 821 will help keep devices powered by Snapdragon 800 premium-tier processors at the top of people’s shopping lists into the foreseeable future."