Android smartphones are on the verge of significantly enhancing their ability to understand your needs and the timing of those needs.
Qualcomm has unveiled the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, designed to power flagship smartphones in 2026. This 3nm chip boasts two prime cores operating at 4.6GHz and six performance cores peaking at 3.62GHz. An enhanced NPU is promising a sophisticated level of on-device agentic AI with diminished dependence on cloud services. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 facilitates video recording via the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec.
Qualcomm has rolled out the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, constructed with Oryon cores. This chip is tailored for high-performance flagship Android devices, focusing on agentic AI and more robust creator-oriented functionalities.
The new 3nm chip provides a notable 20% increase in CPU performance, housing two prime cores at 4.6GHz and six performance cores tailored for energy-efficient tasks. In comparison, the previous Snapdragon 8 Elite features prime cores at 4.32 GHz, and the Galaxy variant can attain speeds of up to 4.47 GHz.
This is further supported by a swifter Adreno GPU, which Qualcomm claims can offer a 23% performance enhancement while reducing power consumption by 20%, enhancing your gaming experience while alleviating battery concerns.
One of the primary emphases for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is its Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which facilitates more advanced AI functionalities. With a 37% quicker NPU, Qualcomm aims to introduce a broader range of on-device agentic AI features. This implies your smartphone should be capable of anticipating your actions and providing context-based recommendations.
Consider what Google aims to achieve with Tensor on the Pixel 10 and features like Magic Cue that present useful, context-aware prompts within your applications. We might observe this trend in numerous smartphones in the future.
“With continuous on-device learning and real-time sensing, multimodal AI models comprehend the user, facilitating proactive recommendations and enhancing situation-based prompts—all while user data remains on the device.”
Qualcomm asserts that integrated agentic features will empower AI assistants to perform actions on your behalf based on your behaviors, preferences, and more, akin to what is currently evident with Chrome. This is also something Motorola hinted at with its Large Action Model, so the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 should be equipped to realize this. The highlight is that this can occur with on-device AI processing, leading to lower battery strain and safeguarding your data.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 presents native compatibility for the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec, enabling devices to capture near-lossless video quality for versatile editing. Devices will also benefit from enhanced video capture, courtesy of a computational video pipeline aimed at context-aware adjustments of footage, alongside professional-grade audio capture facilitated by Snapdragon Audio Sense.
Additional specifications include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, UFS 4.1, and Quick Charge 5.
Qualcomm states that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will be incorporated into devices from Honor, iQOO, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, POCO, Realme, REDMI, RedMagic, ROG, Samsung, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. The first smartphones with this technology are expected to debut very soon.
