Qualcomm Snapdragon 898: everything we know about 2022’s flagship phone chipset

If you’re a fan of Android phones then the Snapdragon 898 (or Snapdragon 895 as it could be called) is a big deal, as this upcoming chipset will almost certainly power many of the best Android phones of 2022.

It’s the successor to the Snapdragon 888, found in the likes of the OnePlus 9 range and US versions of the Samsung Galaxy S21, and it’s set to be the best Qualcomm smartphone chipset of at least the first half of 2022 (with a Snapdragon 898 Plus possibly landing towards the end of the year based on past form).

By extension, it will also probably be the best chipset used in Android phones, as while we’d expect rival chipsets from the likes of MediaTek and Exynos, these aren’t typically as good.

Below, you’ll find everything we’ve heard about the Qualcomm Snapdragon 898, including when it will probably launch, and what phones we’re likely to see it in.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The next top-end Android chipset from Qualcomm
• When is it out? Probably late November or early December

Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 release date

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 will probably be announced on November 30, as that’s the start date of Qualcomm’s two-day Snapdragon Tech Summit, and the company has a history of launching new flagship chipsets at this event, including in 2020 with the Snapdragon 888.

That said, we can’t be completely certain the Snapdragon 898 will land here, as the company hasn’t confirmed it.

Of course, whenever the Snapdragon 898 is announced, you might need to wait a while longer to get it in a phone. But it’s rumored that the first Snapdragon 898 phones will be unveiled before the end of 2021, so there shouldn’t be too long to wait.

News and leaks

Most of the news and leaks about the Snapdragon 898 covers the phones that we might see it in, which we’ll get into below, but an early benchmark has revealed some details of the chipset itself.

Leaker Abhishek Yadav posted what appears to be a Geekbench listing for the chipset on Twitter, revealing that it has a new Adreno 730 GPU and eight cores, with a powerful Cortex-X2 core running at 2.42GHz, three 2.17GHz Cortex-A710 cores, and four 1.79GHz Cortex-A510 cores designed for power efficiency.

That said, an earlier leak from leaker Digital Chat Station pointed to an even higher speed 3.09GHz main core, along with 2.4GHz middle cores and 1.8GHz efficiency cores, apparently allowing for roughly 20% better performance than the Snapdragon 888. So it’s possible that the benchmark is either wrong or doesn’t represent the full capabilities of the Snapdragon 898.

Elsewhere, leaker Ice Universe has posted benchmark scores that point to a roughly 15% boost in performance, and another leak points to cores running at 3GHz, 2.5GHz and 1.79GHz.

So the leaked number vary a bit, but other than that first benchmark they’re mostly in the same ballpark. Given that most sources seem to point to a top clock speed of around 3GHz we’d guess that’s accurate.

The Snapdragon 898 is also rumored to be made on a 4nm manufacturing process, which is an upgrade on the 5nm process used for the Snapdragon 888 – basically meaning that Qualcomm can make it more powerful and efficient without significantly increasing the size.

Which phones will use the Snapdragon 898?

A lot of phones are likely to use the Snapdragon 898, and many of them have already been rumored. These include the Samsung Galaxy S22 range, which will reportedly use this chipset in either most or all parts of the world.

That’s a change, as typically Samsung splits its Galaxy S models between the latest Snapdragon and the latest Exynos.

The Samsung Galaxy S22 range is likely to land in February, but before that we could see the Snapdragon 898 in the Xiaomi 12 in December (though that launch will probably only be for China, with the rest of the world getting it later).

A leak suggests a Motorola phone could join the Xiaomi 12 as one of the first with the Snapdragon 898, possibly also launching before the end of 2021. That leak didn’t name the phone, but more recently another leaker has claimed that the high-end Motorola Edge 30 Ultra will land this year with that chipset.

Leaks also suggest that the Huawei P60 range could use this chipset. That’s slightly surprising as Huawei usually makes its own chipsets, but the US trade ban has complicated things there. Finally, there’s also evidence of the Snapdragon 898 being used in at least one Vivo phone.

Beyond the leaks and rumors, we’d also expect the OnePlus 10 and Sony Xperia 1 IV to use this chipset, based on past form, as probably will the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, and many other phones.

Basically, if you buy a high-end Android smartphone in 2022, there’s a good chance the Snapdragon 898 will be at its heart.