In what can be termed a surprise, Qualcomm has announced a second flagship chipset for 2019. The Snapdragon 855 Plus/Snapdragon 855+ is a faster version of the Snapdragon 855 and is expected to power some of the devices that will launch in H2 2019. The last time something like this happened was in 2016 when Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 821 which is a higher clocked version of the Snapdragon 820.
The Snapdragon 855 Plus has the same Kryo 485 CPU cores but is now clocked at 2.96GHz, up from the 2.84GHz clockspeed of the Snapdragon 855. The Adreno 640 GPU is also reported to have gained a 15% boost in speed.
Qualcomm says the upgrade in the GPU department makes the Snapdragon 855 Plus a great chipset for gaming. It should also make it quite useful for AR and VR devices.
The processor doesn’t have the new X55 modem. Even the X50 modem isn’t integrated, so manufacturers who want to use this for 5G phones will have to install the X50 modem separately.
The Snapdragon 855 Plus is expected to start showing up in devices later this year. While there is no mention of specific manufacturers, we have a few guesses of our own. The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL are strong contenders, so also are the OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro. We also see Xiaomi jumping on the train and putting this chipset inside the Mi MIX 4.
The launch of the Snapdragon 855 Plus is well timed as it will take on Samsung’s new Exynos 9825 which will power the Galaxy Note10 series and also Huawei’s Kirin 985 chipset which is expected to power the Mate 30 series.
