Qualcomm Rethinks Snapdragon Branding with New Tiered System
Riddle me this: what is the difference between the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260, MSM855T, and MSM8930? If that has you scratching your head, you’re not alone. Acknowledging that their current naming scheme isn’t the most consumer friendly way of identifying the various chipsets the company makes for mobile handsets, Qualcomm has announced that they will be moving to a new tier system to help identify where a CPU falls on the spectrum of performance.
Starting with S1, the basic 1GHz CPU that has become almost standard in any smartphone worth its salt, the new system assigns a different category to each level of processor speed and performance (see above breakdown). Right now the number goes through S4 — blazing fast 1.6-2.5GHz chips not found in any current handset — but Qualcomm says as time progresses older processors won’t be phased down to lower tiers. Instead, new levels will be added (S5, S6, etc.). Model numbers will no doubt still exit, though they will mostly be kept behind the scenes when it comes to marketing materials. Personally, we can’t wait to see handsets rocking S4 chips, but we can only imagine where things will go from there.
[via TechCrunch]