Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 Launched, 10% Powerful than 820, targeted for VR head-mounted displays

In November last year, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 820 SoC after a huge setback from Snapdragon 810 SoC. The company came out with 64-bit custom cores for the Kryo CPU where the two cores are clocked at 2.2GHz while the other two at 1.6GHz. It is coupled with Adreno 530 GPU and Hexagon 680 DSP. Almost 115 premium smartphones and tablets are powered by the Snapdragon 820 chipset including the Samsung Galaxy S7, Xiaomi Mi 5, OnePlus 3, and LG G5.

After several rumors and leaks, the Snapdragon 821 SoC (MSM8996 Pro) is now officially announced as the upgraded version of Snapdragon 820 SoC (MSM8996). The Snapdragon 821 also uses the same Kryo CPU and is clocked higher at 2.4GHz. Qualcomm mentioned the Snapdragon 821 to offer 10% increment in performance when compared to its predecessor. More than smartphones, the latest processor can be used in VR headsets with head mounted display as the Virtual Reality is set to take mainstream in the near future.

Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe with 6GB RAM and 256GB storage is the first smartphone to feature Snapdragon 821 processor. The upcoming HTC built Nexus smartphones – Marlin and Sailfish are expected to be using the same Snapdragon 821 chipset. Last month, Antutu revealed the LeEco‘s upcoming smartphone with the model number LE-X720 to sport the MSM8996 Pro processor. Last month, Antutu revealed the LeEco’s upcoming smartphone with the model number LE-X720 to sport the MSM8996 Pro processor.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is expected to launch in two variants, one variant with Exynos 8993 octa-core processor and the other variant might include Snapdragon 821 processor. While the Snapdragon 800 series is featured only in premium devices, MediaTek’s flagship Helio X20 deca-core processor is also used in the Sub $150 smartphones like 360 N4. If the leaks come out true, the upcoming Redmi 4 will be powered by Helio X20 and is expected to price around $100 – $120 price range.