Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Qualcomm and Asus have made their own ultimate Android phone

Andy Boxall
By

Qualcomm has collaborated with Asus to make its definition of the ultimate Android smartphone. It’s called the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders, and as the clunky name suggests, it’s designed primarily as a perk for Qualcomm’s army of dedicated fans. To put it into better context, think of it like a Nexus smartphone commissioned by a chipmaker, rather than a software maker.

The Asus Qualcomm Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Like Google when it launched the Nexus range of hardware in 2011, Qualcomm is not a device manufacturer, hence it has worked with Asus to make the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. To be clear, this isn’t a Qualcomm phone, it’s an Asus phone, and it will sell the phone through its own online store. Although it’s made to appeal to the 1.6 million-strong team of Snapdragon Insiders, anyone with $1,499 to spare can buy one.

Recommended Videos

What makes the phone special?

Yes, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders (from here on, I’ll refer to the phone as the SSI) costs $1,499, so what do you get? After all, this is more expensive than the most powerful phones available today, such as the Galaxy S21 Ultra, the iPhone 12 Pro Max, and Asus’ top ROG Phone 5, so it better be good. From Qualcomm’s perspective, the SSI is a showcase for the Snapdragon 888 processor, paired here with 5G and a massive 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage space.

Related

The SSI provides a fast 5G connection using the third-generation X60 modem, with every key Sub-6 and mmWave band covered for true global 5G connectivity. If you have a 5G contract and a 5G signal is available, the SSI will be your best bet of making the most of 5G wherever you are in the world. It’s joined by a dual-SIM slot with 5G support for both, plus Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth 5.2, and NFC. Android 11 is installed without any additional apps or alterations to the user interface.

The Asus Qualcomm Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

On the front is a 6.78-inch, Samsung-made AMOLED screen with a 2448 x 1080 pixel resolution, a 144Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+. It’s covered by Gorilla Glass Victus. Unusually, the fingerprint sensor is on the back of the phone, but it’s still Qualcomm’s second-generation 3D Sonic Sensor, and has been placed on the rear due to the AMOLED panel being rigid and not flexible, which makes it impossibele for the sensor to be set under the display.

There are three cameras on the back — the 64-megapixel Sony IMX686, a 12MP Sony IMX383 wide-angle, and an 8MP telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom backing it up. Both the main and telephoto cameras have optical image stabilization. You can shoot 4K and 8K video, aa well as use an unusual new feature called AI Auto Zoom, where the camera locks onto your subject, zooms in, and tracks it.

Sound and special true wireless earbuds

Along with Qualcomm’s Elite Gaming features, its Spectra 580 Image Signal Processor, and Quick Charge 5 on the 4,000mAh battery for a 52-minute fast charge time, the phone also introduces Snapdragon Sound. Think of this like a Qualcomm stamp of approval for audio based around the use of key Qualcomm components. The SSI phone has dual stereo speakers, quad microphones, a WDA8835 amplifier, and a QCC5141 audio system-on-a-chip (SoC) with support for 24-bit files and 96kHz streaming, plus AptX Adaptive and AptX Voice.

The Asus Qualcomm Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders with Master & Dynamic earbuds.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

So you can make the most of the audio on the phone, Qualcomm and Asus bundle a special pair of Master & Dynamic MW08 true wireless earbuds with the phone, which come in a matching color. A 65W Quick Charge 5 charger is also included, along with a bumper case and a pair of USB Type-C cables. Finally, we come to the design. It’s not the prettiest phone around, but the Qualcomm fireball logo on the back does light up to give it some character. It’s 9.55mm thick and 210 grams, so definitely not a thin, lightweight phone, and it comes in a single color, Midnight Blue.

Qualcomm says the phone is not a competitor to devices made by its other partners, and it’s not saying if this is the first in a series of similar phones either. It’s a special product designed for Insiders, or Insiders with quite a lot of money to spare at least. The Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders will launch in August for $1,499 through the Asus online store in the U.S., U.K., China, Japan, South Korea, and Germany, with India to follow in the future.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Andy Boxall
Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
I’m anxious and excited about this bonkers, industry-changing phone chip
The MediaTek Dimensity 9300 processor in a case.

Processors, the chips that power our smartphones, can often be overlooked, remembered only by their catchy name. Provided they work, don’t overheat, and incrementally deliver more power and performance every year, it’s hard to get too excited over them, especially when a lot of the magic happens in the background without us even being aware of it.

So, when one comes along that does something radically different to the crowd, it should make us all sit up and take notice — and that’s exactly what MediaTek has done with the Dimensity 9300.
Big, bigger, biggest

Read more
MediaTek’s new chip just raised the bar for Android phones
MediaTek Dimensity 9300 SoC inside Android phone.

MediaTek is ready to enter the flagship Android phone race and challenge Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with its latest processor. The Taiwanese company’s latest weapon is the MediaTek Dimensity 9300, which is based on the 4nm process and packs a cluster of four top-tier ARM cores, putting in a position to race ahead via brute performance.
Compared to its direct rival from Qualcomm (which only has one large prime core), the MediaTek chip goes with an even more ambitious core configuration. There are four ARM Cortex-X4 cores, one of which goes up to 3.25 GHz, while the other three are clocked at 2.85 GHz. For less demanding tasks, there’s a cluster of Arm Cortex-A710 cores.
That large core cluster flexes its might on synthetic benchmarks, with MediaTek claiming nearly double the performance on the Geekbench 6 test and an astounding tally of over 213,000 on the AnTuTu platform. On gaming-centric tests such as GFXBench, the company claims an even bigger lead.
The Dimensity 9300 can support screens maxing out at a 180Hz refresh rate, while 4K panels can refresh at up to the 120Hz mark. On the connectivity front, Wi-Fi 7 is part of the package. There’s also a dedicated security chip in place for securely booting the OS.

On the AI-specific innovation front, MediaTek’s latest flagship mobile processor comes with an AI engine that doubles the AI performance at certain metrics while also consuming 45% less energy. Dubbed APU 790, MediaTek claims it is eight times faster than its predecessor and can produce visual media in less than a second using Stable Diffusion’s text-to-image models.
The company has also tweaked the memory architecture and claims that it can run large language models with up to 13 billion parameters, “with scalability up to 33 billion.” For comparison, Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can only run AI models with up to 10 billion parameters.
Just like its Qualcomm counterpart, MediaTek’s offering also supports mainstream multimodal large language models such as Meta’s Llama 2 and Baidu LLM, among others. But the focus is once again clear. MediaTek is following Qualcomm straight into the race for generative AI tasks covering text, visual media, and audio generation. With another chip company doubling down on AI, this could be even worse news for Google's Pixel phones.
On the graphics front, the Dimensity 9300 relies on the new 12-core Immortalis-G720 GPU, which is said to be 46% faster and 40% more frugal at power consumption. MediaTek is also banking on gaming-centric perks like hardware-accelerated ray tracing that are touted to deliver a 60 frames-per-second (fps) gaming experience with console-grade lighting effects.

Read more
Have an Android phone? You can get unlimited 5G service for free
A person holding the Google Pixel 8 showing the screen.

One of the great things about eSIM technology is how easy it is to get a new line up and running on a compatible smartphone. Gone are the days when you needed to find a carrier store or wait for a new physical SIM card to arrive in the mail. Now, you can go through the entire process from the comfort of your own home and be up and running with a new phone plan in under five minutes.

This is especially great when dealing with prepaid carriers, and one such company that’s been leaning heavily into eSIM technology is Visible. It’s embraced eSIM not just to make it easy for folks to sign up, but also to let prospective customers take the service for a spin before committing to it.

Read more