Yesterday, a device with the name Xiaomi Capricorn, which we believe is a code name for the Mi Note 2 was spotted on Geekbench with a Snapdragon 820 processor. Although we mentioned that it might probably be the base version of the phone seeing that it is clocked at 2GHz and the RAM is just 3GB, it seems the Mi Note 2 will be featuring a snapdragon 821 processor.
An industry analyst, Pan Jiutang posted on Weibo that while Samsung’s Note 7 is going to be the first Snapdragon 821 phone, and Xiaomi will be the first Chinese phone maker to release a Snapdragon 821 flagship.
But ASUS announced the Zenfone 3 Deluxe with SD 821 yesterday, right? Yes, they ANNOUNCED but it most likely won’t be available for purchase yet until way later in the year. So that explains Pan’s statement.
ASUS is known for announcing a device months before it is available for release. The Zenfone 3 was announced in May and it is still not available for purchase in July. Samsung on the other hand usually has the phone available for purchase the same month as its announcement. Same as Xiaomi.
Someone posed a question at Pan Jiutang about LeEco’s supposed July 15 release for a SD821 phone (LeEco has an event on July 15). His response was that if LeEco releases a phone at this event, it should most likely be a SD652 version of the LeEco Le 2 (released previously in India) or even a dual camera version.
The Snapdragon 821 processor is a slightly upgraded version of the SD 820. The clock speed has been raised from 2.2GHz to 2.4GHz and GPU (most likely) upgraded from 624MHz to 650MHz.
The Mi Note 2’s price will probably exceed 3000 Yuan ($449) seeing that it is expected to come with SD 821 SoC, 6GB of RAM, dual cameras, and a curved screen.
