HTC’s 2013 flagship phone, Samsung’s 2013 flagship phone, even LG’s 5.5 inch 1080p flagship, they all have one thing in common: They’re powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600. It’s a fast chip, no one is denying that, but it isn’t the company’s fastest. That honor goes to the Snapdragon 800, which has only recently started shipping, and we’ll see it show up in devices later this year.
According to the Japanese website RBMen, one of the first phones to hit the AnTuTu benchmark database is Pantech’s as yet to be announced IM-A880. For reference, the IM-A860 was the Vega Number 6, which used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro. So how fast is this new phone? The benchmark shows that the chip can clock as high as 2.2 GHz, and it’ll give you an AnTuTu score of over 30,100. There’s only one phone that scores higher than that, the Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa powered Galaxy S4. And it’s barely faster too.
Unlike the Exynos 5 Octa however, which is shipping in such limited quantities that it’s frankly a bit ridiculous, the Snapdragon 800 will end up in a huge variety of devices. LG’s successor to the Optimus G will use the Snapdragon 800, HTC will likely have a phone out with the Snapdragon 800, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out that the third generation Galaxy Note will use the Snapdragon 800.
I want to say you should look forward to Snapdragon 800 powered phones, but isn’t it a given at this point? Quarter after quarter, year after year, phones get faster. It’s jut want they do.