Qualcomm might pass on launching a Snapdragon 865+ chipset this year

Last year Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 855 chipset, and later in the year, they followed up with a slight update in the form of the Snapdragon 855+. It was initially rumored that the company could be following a similar pattern this year with the Snapdragon 865+, but it appears that will no longer be happening.

This is according to a post on Weibo by Meizu’s CMO Wan Zhigiang who claims that there will not be a Snapdragon 865+ this year. This means that whatever flagship phones that are launching in the later part of 2020 will continue to be powered by the Snapdragon 865. This is not necessarily a bad thing as benchmarks have proven that the Snapdragon 865 is quite a beast, so it’s not as though phones will be missing out.

The phones that are expected in the second half of the year include Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 series, the OnePlus 8T, and Google’s Pixel 5, although to be fair the Pixel phones typically don’t use the “Plus” variants of the Snapdragon chipsets. It also means that handset makers will need to find other ways to promote their devices apart from performance gains that would have been had with the Snapdragon 865+ chipset.

Qualcomm has yet to officially comment or say anything regarding their plans, but given that the post came from Meizu’s CMO, there is a good chance it could be pretty accurate.

Source: GizChina