Back in December, Qualcomm unveiled its flagship Snapdragon 865 SoC that will power premium Android smartphones this year. Samsung is expected to be the first of companies to release Snapdragon 865 devices with the launch of its Galaxy S20. Qualcomm didn’t share any specifications at that time, but there was an indication the chip will bring 8K video support. The chipmaker now shared a video shot in 8K resolution using the Snapdragon 865 on a prototype smartphone, thereby proving 8K recording is possible on smartphones.
Qualcomm Showcases 8K Video Recording Capabilities on Snapdragon 865
In a blog post, Qualcomm said the shoot took place in November 2019 at various locations in Arizona. The chipmaker said the hardware used was the Snapdragon 865 chipset paired with a 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor on a “prototype smartphone”. Qualcomm, however, clarified that the video was shot with pre-production hardware. Thus, the end result is a bit noisy and grainy, which might also be due to YouTube compression or actual hardware.
Besides, 8K video recording Qualcomm promises to bring a whole new set of camera features for smartphones. The company’s flagship Snapdragon 865 SoC is equipped with a new Spectra 480 ISP. This Computer Vision-Image Signal Processor (CV-ISP) can capture professional image quality and can process 2 gigapixels per second.
The ISP 480 brings in 8K video recording featuring 33MPs per frame. The 865 allows for unlimited 960FPS slow-motion recording. It also captures 200MP photos and can simultaneously record 4K HDR video and 64MP photos. Other features include Dolby Vision video capture which is popular in the film industry.
https://youtu.be/lvf7XwUTT0I
The first batch of smartphones powered by Snapdragon will be Samsung's Galaxy S20 series. The top-end Galaxy S20 Ultra is touted to bring 8K video recording support alongside a 108MP camera sensor. The true capabilities of the processor will be known in coming days as Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event is scheduled on February 11.
Confirmed Smartphones With Snapdragon 865 SoC Listed
Besides the Galaxy S20 series, other phones like the Xiaomi Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro, OnePlus 8 & 8 Pro, Redmi K30 Pro, Oppo Find X2, Realme X50 865 and several other phones are expected to come with Snapdragon 865 SoC. Snapdragon 865 does not come with integrated 5G modem, so we will see phones with the flagship Qualcomm SoC launching in India.
