The new Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 aims to make premium features a bit more accessible

What you need to know

• Qualcomm announced its new mobile platform, Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 bringing premium performance and features to mid-range flagship phones.
• The new chip features a Kryo CPU and newly sliced Qualcomm Adreno GPU architecture, delivering improved performance and 3.2 GHz peak speeds.
• The new chip comes packed with 31% improved CPU performance and 39% better power efficiency compared to the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.

Qualcomm has announced the launch of its new Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 mobile platform today (April 2). This new chip is said to improve the performance of mid-tier flagship phones compared to the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. It is specifically designed for smartphones that focus on gaming compared to the other features on the phone.

According to the chip maker's press release, the new chip features Kryo cores instead of Oryon like in the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. It sports a 1+3+2+2 core configuration that claims to clock speeds at up to 3.2 GHz, which is higher than its predecessor (3.0 GHz).

Regarding the changes in its GPU, the SD 8s Gen 4 is equipped with an Adreno 825 GPU, which increases the chip's performance by 49% compared to the 8s Gen 3 (features in phones like the Motorola Razr Plus 2024). This enables real-time accelerated ray tracing and global illumination, delivering improved lighting, shadows, and reflections during gameplay.

The chip is said to bring with it some of Snapdragon's elite gaming experience, "including the Qualcomm Adaptive Performance Engine and Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0." This will, in turn, improve the user's gaming sessions without using up a lot of the device's power.

Qualcomm has made significant changes to the chip's Neural Processing Unit (NPU), and its "Qualcomm AI Engine" is said to improve AI performance by 44%. This enables the chip to easily process and run multi-modal Gen AI models, much like Google's Gemini or ChatGPT within the phone. The chip gets 2x larger shared memory that speeds up the user's interaction with LLMs or LVMs.

This Hexagon NPU also has the intelligence to snap better pictures automatically and is now enhanced to support a 320 MP single-camera sensor, significantly higher than the 200MP on the SD 8s Gen 3.

Higher sensor support comes with better photography, including better object recognition of up to 250 different things in a single 4K image, and helps capture photos that naturally color-correct the image based on the lighting around them. Additionally, this chip will also support better nighttime photography, with Night Vision 2.0 recording ultra-low light videos at a smooth 4K30 FPS.

Other notable features of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 include uninterrupted entertainment with the Snapdragon Sound Technology Suite, featuring Qualcomm aptX Audio for lossless CD-quality music, and Qualcomm's eXpanded Personal Area Network (XPAN) technology, which "keeps earbuds and headphones connected via Wi-Fi" for uninterrupted audio during intense game sessions.

Lastly, when it comes to connectivity, the chip gets the same Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF as the SD 8s Gen 3, which is said to increase download speeds up to 4.2Gbps on any 5G network and also works on conserving the device's battery when connected to it. It comes with support for Wi-Fi 7 at up to 5.8Gbps and Bluetooth 6.

According to GSM Arena, this chip is expected to debut on the iQOO Z10 Turbo and more devices from Xiaomi, Oppo, Meizu, and more.