The first Snapdragon 8s Elite phones could launch next month, leaker claims

What you need to know

• Qualcomm's lower-end Snapdragon 8s Elite chipset could start appearing in midrange phones next month.
• A previous leak predicted the Snapdragon 8s Elite processor would launch in March 2025, but it is now expected to debut a month later.
• The Snapdragon 8s Elite chip is expected to perform between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

Qualcomm's current generation of smartphone and tablet chips, including the Snapdragon 8 Elite has been incredibly successful. Using the company's own custom Oryon cores, phones with Snapdragon 8 Elite chips inside are significantly faster than their predecessors. However, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite processors are also quite expensive, and that's why a more affordable variant is on the horizon.

According to reputable leaker Yogesh Brar on X (formerly Twitter), the affordable chipset — named Snapdragon 8s Elite — will start appearing in phones starting next month. Brar claims that there will be "plenty of phones sporting it" and that the initial wave of Snapdragon 8s Elite devices will "first launch in April."

This update from Brar contradicts a previous claim that said the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Elite would launch in March 2025. This leak, posted in December 2024, also claimed that the chip would be based on ARM, instead of the custom Oryon cores used in Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite and Snapdragon X lineups. If this is the case, the Snapdragon 8s Elite chip could perform closer in line to older Snapdragon chips rather than the newer, Oryon-based SoCs.

Android Authority, citing a January 2025 leak, notes that the Snapdragon 8s Elite could perform better than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and worse than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, with performance sitting somewhere in the middle.

As for the breakdown of cores inside the Snapdragon 8s Elite processor, the January 2025 leak predicts that the chip will include eight total cores. Of those cores, there could be a big Cortex-X4 with a clock speed of 3.21GHz, paired with three performance Cortex-A720 cores clocked at 3.01GHz. The rest of the cores might be efficiency cores, including two 2.80GHz Cortex-A720 cores and two more unnamed 2.02GHz cores.

Of course, this is all speculation until Qualcomm or its partner OEMs officially confirm the Snapdragon 8s Elite chipset and its specs.