Analysis – Robot portrait of a high-end smartphone in 2025

© Image generated by AI

Snapdragon 8 Elite © Qualcomm

Announced in October 2024, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is described by Qualcomm as a major advance in the field of SoCs for smartphones (System on Chip). Its 3nm engraving increases the density of components while reducing its energy consumption. This means that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (engraved in 4nm) has 112 million transistors per square millimeter (MTr/mm2) to 170 MTr/mm2 for the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is also the first SoC for smartphones to use second-generation Oryon cores to replace the Kryo cores of the previous range. This technology is derived from that of the cores equipping the Snapdragon X Elite, intended for notebooks. Oryon’s fine-grained fabrication and reduced power consumption have allowed for a profound change in Snapdragon architecture.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 2, and 3 were based on a 1+5+2 octacore architecture:

• a “main” coredelivering maximum performance for demanding tasks, but consuming a lot of power,
• five “performance” cores with a balanced performance/power consumption ratio for common tasks,
• two “efficiency” cores deploying less power.

The 3nm manufacturing process and core redesign have significantly reduced the power requirements of the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Qualcomm has kept the eight cores but reorganized them into 2+6:

• two main cores with maximum performance and significantly lower power consumption than previous generations
• six performance cores with a balanced performance/power consumption ratio for common tasks.
  The efficiency cores, now less advantageous in the face of reduced power consumption, have therefore fallen by the wayside.

The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is not the only one to see its performance explode. The same goes for the Adreno 830 GPU, whose segmented architecture allows for a 40% increase in performance compared to the previous model while having an increased energy efficiency of 40%.

The NPU (Neural Processing Unit), the true conductor of everything related to AI, also sees its performance boosted (+45%) and its energy efficiency increased (+45%) compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The consequence of these improvements is that artificial intelligence will process more and more tasks locally without needing to send your personal data to the Cloud.

Without going into technical details, we will specify that the modem, the memory manager and the digital signal processor (in charge of audio, video and processing of photographs) see their performances explode.

Mediatek, an increasingly credible competitor

© MediaTek

Qualcomm faces Mediatek, an increasingly formidable competitor in the high-end segment. The Taiwanese company has carved out a solid reputation for itself in entry-level and mid-range products with SoCs that offer average performance but unbeatable prices. So much so that it was the world’s leading seller of SoCs for smartphones in mid-2020, with most of its sales coming from emerging markets.

The introduction of the Dimensity SoC range at the end of 2019 marked a major strategic turning point, as they are intended for mid- and high-end smartphones. The Dimensity 9400, announced in October 2024, is the most powerful model offered by Mediatek to date.

On paper, it has nothing to envy the Snapdragon 8 Elite since it offers equivalent performance as well as excellent energy efficiency. The Dimensity 9400 is for example present on the Find X8 and X8 Pro from OPPO released at the end of 2024. It should be found in other manufacturers during the first quarter of 2025.

© Huawei

© Huawei

Will we see major changes in display on the future smartphones ? It's unlikely, at least at the beginning of the year. The technology AMOLED LPTOis gaining ground at the expense of IPS LCD, which in 18 months has become an oldie relegated to entry-level models (and even then).

Variable refresh rates are becoming the norm in order to limit energy consumption. Currently, the most common range is 1-120 Hz, which is more than enough for current uses. Some panel manufacturers are going up to 144 Hz, but the benefit is currently not extraordinary in most cases (few apps take advantage of it). But at least it gives an argument bright and shine to marketing departments…

Folding screens are starting to attract the attention of potential buyers. The manufacturers are currently working on four aspects:

• improved hinge mechanisms and the elasticity of the panels in order to completely eliminate fold marks. This is not at all obvious at the moment, even if we can still see some improvements in this area
• reduction of black borders around the panel in order to get closer to what is offered with conventional screens
• improved anti-reflective properties of protective coatings, those currently used being far from being at the level of what is found on conventional screens.
• increased sizeby allowing two folds (three panels). This is what Huawei demonstrated with the launch in China of the Mate XT, which we find impressive. But will it have a future?? To be continued!

The main obstacle to the mass adoption of smartphones with folding screens remains their price. Positioned at the top of the high-end range, they easily cost an arm and a leg and target professionals or wealthy buyers. Currently, the least expensive model is Motorola's Razr 50, whose recommended retail price still reaches €799. To attract the general public, which makes or breaks commercial successes, this price would have to be halved.

There is therefore real room for improvement. Whether they are foldable or not, we are also waiting for the improvement, then the generalization of cameras housed under the display panel, currently little used (to our knowledge, Samsung and Nubia are the only ones to use it). Another area of ​​progress is improving brightness without boosting power consumption too much. We believe that 1.5K resolution panels with a maximum brightness of 3200 nits should become the norm.

Finally, e-ink is starting to attract the attention of manufacturers. Not as a main display, the latency being far too high for that, but as a complement, on the back (or exterior) of smartphones. The option is becoming more and more credible with the improvement of electronic ink technologies, the arrival of color and above all a drop in the price of panels. We don't think major manufacturers will adopt it in 2025, but it should start to show up in new product concepts.

Li-ion and Li-po are essential for now

In terms of high-end, 5000 mAh batteries are becoming the norm. Some manufacturers are trying to stand out by gradually abandoning Lithium-ion (Li-ion) and Lithium-polymer (Li-po) technologies. Silicon-carbon (Si-ca), with high energy power (more energy per equal volume than a lithium battery) is one of the promising technologies and has already been adopted by Honor.

While these technologies still have a bright future ahead of them, manufacturers are interested in new promising avenues. For example, let's mention graphene batterieswhich charge very quickly, have a high storage capacity and a longer life, but whose cost is still far too high. Sodium-ion batteries (Na-ion) use sodium, an inexpensive element that is abundant on the planet. They have the advantage of charging quickly and being more resistant to extreme temperatures, but have a lower energy density than Li-ion.

Betavoltaic batteries: ultimate solution or utopia?

Betavolt's betavoltaic cell has a lifespan of 50 years © Betavolt technology

The technologies mentioned so far focus on chemically improving what already exists. A completely different (and somewhat scary) approach is to exploit the 8217;nuclear energy. Betavoltaic batteriescould revolutionize the power supply of smartphones and any mobile object. They produce electricity from the radioactive decay of an isotope, such as nickel-63, and are designed to limit radiation.

Unlike conventional nuclear reactors, they do not use atomic fission or fusion to produce energy, but beta minus (β-) radiation emitted during the atomic decay of nickel-63. This isotope of nickel then transforms into copper-63, a stable isotope of copper, and therefore non-radioactive. The main advantage is that they do not need to be recharged and can operate for decades.

The Californians at Infinity Power, a start-up supported by the US Department of Defense, plan to make a major announcement on this subject in 2025. For its part, the start-upChinese company Betavolt Technology recently presented a miniature betavoltaic cell capable of generating electricity for 50 years. It promises to start production in 2025. Is this just a publicity stunt like the high-tech industry regularly experiences, or is it a genuine innovation? It is difficult to know more for the moment. It remains to be seen whether the public is ready to accept putting a nuclear-based product in its pocket.

Fast charging is still looking for its universal standard

The tricky issue of fast charging remains. With the notable exception of Samsung, all Android smartphone manufacturers have developed ultra-fast charging technologies. There is one small problem, however: they all require a specific power supply unit. Little by little, consortia are being formed to try to standardize all of this. This is what Power Delivery is trying to do, for example, with a more or less obvious success.

The main driver for the advancement of this standardization could be the European Union. By imposing the non-delivery of chargers with smartphones from January 2025, it is likely that a common standard will quickly become established.

© Sony

The image processors of the new SoCs naturally benefit from improvements in the SoC architecture as well as AI. For example, the Snapdragon 8 Elite allows simultaneous capture of three 4K HDR streams, which opens the way to new applications. Capturing sequences in 8K HDR at 30 fps and in 4K HDR at 120 fps is now possible. The question remains whether we have any use for it!

Support for increasingly defined sensors is also on the agenda. The Snapdragon 8 Elite supports them up to 320 Megapixelss. The level of detail in the images should benefit from this, as should images shot in very low light.

AI is becoming increasingly present in video signal processing and high-end SoCs have incredibly sophisticated image processors. At Qualcomm, the Spectra allows the identification and separation of different objects and layers in an image. It is therefore possible to apply selective effects and adjustments in real time (modifying the background of a photo without affecting the main subject, for example).

Qualcomm (still it) demonstrated a “magic eraser” intended to remove unwanted elements in a video, something unimaginable until now. We should see it gradually appear in new high-end smartphones, even if, for the moment, no manufacturer has confirmed its presence. However, rumors suggest that Samsung would be the first to implement it in its high-end products.

The flagship OS at the beginning of the year will unsurprisingly be Android 15, whose effective lifespan should be significantly shorter than that of previous versions. Google is keen to make Android 16 available to manufacturers during the first half of 2025in order not to repeat the mistakes of version 15, which was released far too late.

Android 16 aims to support the new hardware features provided by the new SoCs. And more particularly in terms of energy efficiency and artificial intelligence. Gemini should evolve by blending more deeply into the OS. The assistant should also be able to provide more reliable and detailed information.

This is in any case what the first versions of the “new Gemini” currently in development suggest. Our first tests of this new AI are making our mouths water. The “Deep Research », currently being tested, allows for the generation of much more documented files and reports. For each query, a plan is submitted for user approval before the text is generated, and the user can modify it as desired.

Let's hope that manufacturers will not take advantage of this to abandon their own developments and let themselves be carried along by the Google ecosystem. This would be all the more unfortunate since Samsung, Honor and OPPO have interesting developments in their AI in the pipeline, particularly in terms of image editing and translation speed.

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