Alongside its new high-end PC chips, Qualcomm lifted the lid on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which it claims is the “world’s fastest mobile system-on-a-chip”.
Synonymous with premium Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, Snapdragon chipsets tend to outperform most other handsets. This time around, Qualcomm claims the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has a 20 per cent better CPU than its predecessor, along with 23 per cent better gaming performance and a 37 per cent faster NPU.
For video enthusiasts, the new Snapdragon chipset supports recording in Advanced Professional Video, a codec used in pro-level productions. It’s meant to capture high-quality footage that’s easy to work with in post-production, potentially paving the way for more flexible and efficient 8K video recording on premium phones.
One of Qualcomm’s big areas it focused on with this new processor was enabling “personalised agentic AI assistants” to run locally on devices. Multimodal AI technology that takes various forms of input and works with contextual cues is a common goal among major phone brands. Samsung’s most recent event revolved around multimodal AI, while Google’s Magic Cue feature made a similar attempt.
According to Qualcomm’s announcement, the first phones to use the new chipset will launch “in the coming days”. Most of the named phone companies only make handsets for overseas markets. However, upcoming flagship phones from Oppo and Samsung will likely get the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 treatment.
“potentially paving the way for 8K video recording on premium phones.”
My S25 Ultra records in 8K, unless you meant some other aspect of it?
Right you are! I should’ve said more efficient and flexible 8K video recording. I’ll edit the article now – thanks for picking that up.