Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 Plus brings a performance boost to flagship phones

By Christian de Looper Published July 12, 2019

Qualcomm wants to take the Snapdragon 855 to the next level before it presumably unveils a newer chip at the end of the year. The company has taken the wraps off of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus, which is aimed at acting as a modest upgrade to the original Snapdragon 855. According to Qualcomm, the new, slightly more powerful chip is aimed at delivering 5G, mixed reality, and artificial intelligence, along with a better mobile gaming experience.

The chipset brings a few performance tweaks to the Snapdragon 855, and will likely appear in upcoming flagship phones that get released between now and December, which is when Qualcomm traditionally has released its flagship chipsets.

Recommended Videos

So what’s new? Well, while the original Snapdragon 855 offered a Kryo 485 CPU with a clock speed of 2.84GHz, the Snapdragon 855 Plus steps things up to a so-called Kryo 485 Prime CPU, which offers a clock speed of 2.96GHz. The Snapdragon 855 Plus also features an Adreno 640 GPU that Qualcomm says has been tuned to offer a 15% performance increase over the Adreno 640 in the original Snapdragon 855.

“Snapdragon 855 Plus will raise the bar for elite gamers with the increase in CPU and GPU performance and elevate experiences for 5G, gaming, A.I., and XR, which is something our OEM customers look to us to deliver,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president of product management at Qualcomm, in a statement.

This isn’t the first time Qualcomm has released a small upgrade to a chip before the launch of a new flagship. The company released the Snapdragon 821 in July 2016, which served as a small upgrade to the Snapdragon 820. The Snapdragon 821 offered a 10% performance increase over the Snapdragon 820, but otherwise offered similar features. A few phones were released with the Snapdragon 821, including the original Google Pixel, the LG G6, and the HTC U Ultra.

According to Qualcomm, phones with the Snapdragon 855 Plus are expected to ship in the second half of 2019, meaning that phones like the Google Pixel 4 may well ship with the new chip. Even the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 may feature the Snapdragon 855 Plus, though given the Galaxy Note 10 is expected to be released on August 7, it may still offer the original Snapdragon 855.

Christian de Looper

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…

Topics

Phones

The phone you can actually repair yourself is finally coming to the US

A phone built to be fixed, not replaced, has officially landed stateside.

Fairphone-in-hand

Most US smartphone buyers gravitate towards popular smartphone brands, including Apple, Samsung, and Google. And while there’s no denying that these companies make exceptional smartphones, they all fall short in the department of repairability.

Break the display, and you are looking at repair costs of upwards of $300. Want to change the battery? It’s going to cost you at least $100, and even if you are ready to pay, you cannot repair it yourself.

Phones

Ugreen’s latest travel adapter packs 100W, four ports, and a screen into one charger

Ugreen’s new $55 charger puts a tiny dashboard on 100W of power

UGREEN Nexode Pro 100W 4-Port GaN Charger with Smart Display Featured

With the number of gadgets I use every day, I have reached the point where another charging brick needs to do something smart or better for me to consider buying it. The Ugreen Nexode Pro 100W 4-Port GaN Charger with Smart Display has quietly arrived in the US after recently launching in the UK.

It carries a $64.99 list price, while Ugreen and Amazon currently advertise a $54.99 promotional price. This travel adapter gets you three USB-C ports, one USB-A connection, and up to 100W of total charging power in a compact GaN wall charger.

Phones

Samsung’s cheaper Galaxy S26 FE may get one camera feature I absolutely loved

Horizon Lock is coming to the cheapest Galaxy S26 model

Close-up of three circular cameras on the back of the white Galaxy S25 FE

Over the last couple of weeks, leaks have already told us plenty about the Galaxy S26 FE. Much of the hardware sounds frustratingly familiar, while the design is unsurprisingly getting minimal changes. Now, a couple of hands-on videos have finally shown something I’m considerably more interested in.

Two apparent Galaxy S26 FE units have appeared in real-world videos, including footage shared by TikTok account @_samz02 and another clip reposted on X by Bradley, or @VerdeSelvans. Both show a purple or violet phone carrying Samsung’s newer S26-style camera island, and more importantly, Horizontal Lock appears inside the camera app.