Qualcomm quietly updates flagship-lite lineup with Snapdragon 8s Gen 4
Note: This article was first published on 7 April 2025.
Qualcomm has quietly launched the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset over the weekend, which is a crucial 2025 update to its flagship-lite chipset offering to phone makers and the successor to 2024’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.
If you’ve been following its Snapdragon chipsets, you’ll know that the “s” suffix would park the processor’s capability somewhere between its true flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite and its midrange Snapdragon 7 series mobile platforms.
While a refresh was expected, the perks and choices made for the flagship-lite processor were still surprising to us.
Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 perks and features
Firstly, Qualcomm isn’t retiring its old CPUs yet, despite introducing new Oryon CPUs found in its flagship mobile processor and laptop processors.
Per GSMArena, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 uses an 8-core Kyro CPU. It has a single 3.2GHz Cortex-X4 prime core, three 3.0GHz Cortex-A720 cores, two 2.8GHz Cortex-A720 cores, and two 2.0GHz Cortex-A720 cores.
Qualcomm’s own product brief doesn’t list all the cores but it hinted at 39%, 49%, and 44% increased CPU, GPU, and AI performance, respectively.
Secondly, Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 brings several enhancements you’d only expect in its highest-end Snapdragon 8 Elite platform.
It has 18-bit Triple AI ISP (supports up to three cameras that taps into AI), 4K Limitless Segmentation (with real-time enhancing of over 250 objects).
In the AI aspect, it offers 2x larger shared memory for higher bandwidth.
Connectivity-wise, it has Bluetooth 6.0 support, as well as Wi-Fi 7 compatibility (up to 5.8Gbps). The modem is a Snapdragon X75 5G, which is still fairly new and advanced but not as futuristic as the Snapdragon X80 5G found inside Snapdragon 8 Elite.
For gamers, it gets “the full suite” of Snapdragon Elite Gaming features, which means its gaming optimisation and support (like hardware-accelerated ray tracing) is on-par with its premium flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chip.
Other little details include support for UFS 4.0 storage, USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, up to 4,800MHz LPDDR5X RAM, Qualcomm Quick Charge 5.0, as well as WQHD+ displays up to up to 144Hz refresh rate.
Together, these supported specs make an excellent chipset choice for users who want a true high-end phone experience, but don’t want to pay for the latest advancements (which they might not use anyway).
Qualcomm said the new flagship-lite processor will appear in Xiaomi, OPPO, Meizu, and other phone brand’s device “later”.
Souce: Qualcomm
