When you think of processors for notebooks two names come up: AMD and Intel. With the reveal of the Snapdragon 835 at CES 2017, Qualcomm seems intent on adding its name to the pile.
The Snapdragon 835 is the follow up to last year’s Snapdragon 820 which was already a powerful beast. The CPU has been given an update and now features an octa-core Kryo 280 CPU which can reach a clock speed of up to 2.45GHz. This can be paired with low power DDR4 memory running at 1866MHz.
The form factor of the processor is the interesting bit here because while the 820 was pegged exclusively for smartphones and tablets, Qualcomm has added laptops to the mix for the 835. Whether these processors can compete with the likes of Intel and it’s energy efficient and capable processors, remains to be seen.
Even if the 835 is only used for smartphones, Qualcomm is giving manufacturers a lot more options when it comes to deciding what features they want to include in smartphones.
For instance, while the Snapdragon 820 processor supported UHD video playback it wasn’t always at the best frame rate, the 835 however will be able to deliver UHD video at a magical 60 frames per second. The processor also boasts UltraHD Premium compliance thanks to it’s 10-bit colour depth and Rec2020 colour gamut.
Handling GPU duties is an Adreno 540GPU which supports OpenGL ES 3.2, Open CL 2.0 full, Vulkan and Direct X 12 APIs.
As to the all important camera, the 835 can support a 16MP dual camera affair or a single 32MP snapper.
Streaming hopes
Where the 835 really makes strides is in its wireless technologies. The processor supports the 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac standards but also boasts support for 802.11ad. This standard operates on the 60GHz band and is suited to streaming UHD content to a TV without the need for a cable.
When you aren’t on WiFi, the 835 has cellular support for all the major technologies including LTE, GSM/EDGE and can reach theoretical download speeds of up to 1Gbps and upload speeds of 150Mbps.
Just five more minutes
The last little feature that has us in a bit of a tither is the charging capabilities of this processor. The 835 supports the latest Qualcomm Quick Charge 4 technology which the firm claims can give a handset five hours of life with just a five minute charge.
We’ve embedded the full spec sheet for the Snapdragon 835 for you to drool over while we wait for the first smartphones boasting this new processor to be released. If this processor is anything to go by however, 2017 is looking like it’s going to be a good year for smartphones.
