Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 – 10% Faster Than 820
The Snapdragon 821 processor takes over the reins from Snapdragon 820, the SoC currently used in most of the flagship smartphones in the Android world. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 821 features a number of improvements compared to the Snapdragon 820, across a range of areas. Most importantly, in terms of speed, the Snapdragon 821 will be 10% faster than Snapdragon 820. Apart from speed, Snapdragon 821 also improves in terms of power efficiency – it is 5% more efficient than 820. Snapdragon 821 sees an increase in the clock speed as well – it now comes with two Kryo cores clocked at 2.34 GHz and two Kryo cores clocked at 2.19 GHz. The Adreno 530 GPU is carried over from the Snapdragon 820, but it is now clocked slightly faster at 653 MHz, compared to 624 MHz in Snapdragon 820. In other areas, we see an improvement in the boot speed, app loading, scrolling and web browsing. According to Qualcomm, Snapdragon 821 will help your phone boot 10% faster compared to 820. App loading times should also be reduced, helping improve the overall user experience. Snapdragon 821 also comes with support for dual Phase Detection Autofocus, which should improve the overall autofocus speed. While not as major, it will now support cameras with up to 28 MP as opposed to 25 MP in Snapdragon 820. In terms of internet speed, the Snadragon 821 supports the same X12 LTE modem with up to 600 Mbps peak download speed and up to 150 Mbps peak upload speed.
Smartphones Launching With Snapdragon 821
At the moment, the Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe is confirmed to be the first smartphone to come with Snapdragon 821 SoC. While Samsung is done with its flagships for the year, we could see the new Nexus/Google phones coming with Snapdragon 821. We’ll update you as we know more about this.