Qualcomm’s next SoC to be called Snapdragon 888; will power new Xiaomi, Realme smartphones

Qualcomm on Tuesday evening announced its next SoC which will power the next generation of powerful smartphones. The chipmaker has decided to name the new processor Snapdragon 888 instead of Snapdragon 875 which would have been more chronological. The new chipset will follow Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865+ which already power some smartphones. It comes with the Snapdragon X60 5G modem and includes a sixth-generation Qualcomm AI Engine. 

The new processor will make its global debut on Xiaomi’s Mi 11 which was also announced during the virtual keynote taking place at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2020.  

"I'm very happy to tell you that the next-generation Xiaomi premium 5G smartphone powered by Snapdragon 888 will be launched very soon,” said Xiaomi Co-Founder and CEO Lei Jun at the keynote. “This is a cutting-edge product full of numerous top-notch features.” 

Aside from the Mi 11, the Snapdragon 888 SoC is expected to power a range of Android flagship smartphones in 2021. Companies including Asus, Black Shark, Lenovo, LG, Meizu, Motorola, Nubia, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo, and Vivo have announced their support for the new chipset. 

Soon after the keynote, Realme announced that its next smartphone will be one of the first to be powered by the same SoC. Realme has teased its upcoming phone codenamed ‘Race’ with the new flagship 5G SoC. The company hasn’t shared any other detail about its upcoming flagship phone other than confirming the processor 

However, Realme Race is likely to come with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The smartphone is also said to run Android 11 with Realme UI 2.0 layered on top. Realme Race will most likely be a part of the company’s ‘X’ series but there’s no confirmation yet. Realme is yet to announce a launch date for the same.