Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders review (hands-on): Qualcomm's best, for a price
Our Verdict
At $ane,499, the Qualcomm Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders won't appeal to nearly shoppers. Only it exhibits some features that could find their way into the meridian Android phones.
For
- Powerful processor
- Bang-up gaming features
- Long-lasting battery and fast-charging
Against
- Very expensive
- Cameras don't mensurate up to best photographic camera phones
- Sound features not fully functional
Tom's Guide Verdict
At $1,499, the Qualcomm Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders won't entreatment to well-nigh shoppers. But it exhibits some features that could find their way into the superlative Android phones.
Pros
- +
Powerful processor
- +
Corking gaming features
- +
Long-lasting battery and fast-charging
Cons
- -
Very expensive
- -
Cameras don't measure up to best camera phones
- -
Audio features not fully functional
Qualcomm's announcement earlier this summertime that it would team upwards with Asus to make the non exactly evocatively named Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders caused a lot of head-scratching in the mobile world. Qualcomm certainly knows its way around mobile chipsets, the thinking went, but what's the point of building your ain handset, when plenty of the best Android phones already showcase Qualcomm silicon?
Now that nosotros've gotten our hands on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders — really, they couldn't come up with a snappier name? — Qualcomm's reasoning is a lilliputian clearer. Qualcomm wants to prove off everything its chips can do — non just operation and graphics, simply in capturing photos, providing stellar audio and keeping you connected. There are Qualcomm technologies involving gaming and charging to highlight, too.
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And that's what Qualcomm's Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders is meant to practice — give us a telephone that puts many of the chip maker'south innovations front end and heart in a smartphone. In this Smartphone for Snapdragon for Insiders easily-on, we'll see how shut Qualcomm comes to delivering on that objective.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders price and availability
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders Specs
Starting price: $1,499
Screen size: 6.78-inch AMOLED (2248 10 1080; 144Hz)
CPU: Snapdragon 888
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 512GB
Rear cameras: 64MP master (f/1.viii), 12MP ultrawide (f/2.2), 8MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom
Front camera: 24MP
Battery size: 4,000 mAh
Charging speed: Qualcomm QuickCharge five.0
Size: half dozen.8 ten iii x 0.38 inches
Weight: 7.4 ounces
The Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders costs $1,499. If that cost makes y'all gulp, it's because Qualcomm'due south phone is 1 of the about expensive available, topped only by the $ane,799 Galaxy Z Fold three Samsung introduced this month. The Galaxy S21 Ultra, the most expensive choice in Samsung's Galaxy S21 flagship lineup, costs $300 less than the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders.
Of grade, that $1,499 buys you more than than simply a phone. Qualcomm includes a pair of MW08SI wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation from Master & Dynamic, a charging case for those earbuds, a custom safe bumper to protect the phone and charging cables plus a 65W charger for your phone. That latter accessory is more than Galaxy S21 and iPhone 12 owners can expect.
Yous can only order the phone if yous're a member of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Insider plan, which in improver to giving you the hazard to buy $ane,500 handsets also delivers behind the scenes data virtually Qualcomm's various mobile initiatives. The Insider program is free to bring together.
Equally of this writing, Qualcomm says carrier certification is still in progress with U.Southward. wireless providers, so it'due south unclear with networks will welcome the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders, though 5G support for the phone is quite extensive, equally we'll see below.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders design and brandish
Dissimilar the reference designs Qualcomm builds to let people test out its chipsets, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders has a decidedly more polished form that doesn't look out of place among other Android handsets. That's likely because Qualcomm tapped Asus to build its telephone, and the result is a decent-looking handset with rounded edges, a midnight blue matte finish and red accents.
The back of the phone features a Snapdragon logo that lights up when the phone comes to life or when yous launch a new app. Above that is a thumbprint scanner for unlocking the phone. The scanner lacks whatever sort of cutout or guide to assistance you place your finger, so if you lot're staring at the forepart of the phone, information technology may evidence hard to unlock it past tapping around. I found the sensor pretty hit or miss, though thankfully, you can too enable face unlocking equally well.
The other noteworthy design flourish on the back of the phone is the rear photographic camera array, featuring three lenses bundled in a vertical strip. The rectangular array juts out pretty far, and then that information technology's impossible to set the Qualcomm telephone on its back without resting on the array. On the bright side, the array is and then big that the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders doesn't rock dorsum and along.
I can't pretend to exist in love with the look of the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. Information technology'due south functional enough, but a fleck on the heavy side at 7.4 ounces. The iPhone 11 Pro Max I use every day actually outweighs that, at vii.9 ounces, but the weight feels more evenly distributed in Apple's device.
The tendency in higher-end phones these days is to ramp upward the refresh charge per unit on the screen for smoother scrolling and more immersive experiences. Many flagship phones like the Galaxy S21 series opt for 120Hz as the maximum refresh rate. The Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders does that one better by going with 144Hz on its 6.8-inch OLED panel, a refresh rate typically establish on gaming phones.
I institute I had to crank up the brightness on the screen to enjoy its colors, only once I did, the brilliant pinks and vibrant await of Girls5Eva streaming on Peacock looked just as authentic on the Qualcomm phone's screen as the warm 1970s film stock of The Godfather.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders performance and gaming
And so again, you're not picking up the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders for its pattern or display. Yous're interested in this phone because you lot want to experience Qualcomm's top mobile features. And the Snapdragon 888 system-on-fleck that powers the device helps put those front and heart.
If you keep tabs on the latest Android phones, you're well aware of what the Snapdragon 888 can do. Information technology'south the fastest chipset nevertheless for Android phones, though it lags behind the footstep set by Apple's A14 Bionic chip. That trend continues with the Smartphone for Snapdragon insiders, at least based on our testing.
Across multiple runs of Geekbench 5, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders posted single-core and multicore scores of i,125 and 3,697, respectively. That'south alee of the Galaxy S21 Ultra (ane,123/3,440) and in line with the OnePlus 9 Pro (1,126/3,685), two other Android flagships that rely on the Snapdragon 888. The iPhone 12 Pro Max trounces its Android competition with single and multicore scores of i,603 and 4,111, respectively.
The story'south the aforementioned when nosotros tested graphics. Like the OnePlus nine Pro and Galaxy S21 Ultra, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders tallied a picayune more than 34 frames per 2nd on 3DMark's Wild Life test. That's nigh what you'd expect from the best Android phones, though it trails the iPhone'due south consequence.
It's worth focusing on graphics operation, and not only considering the Adreno 660 GPU on the Snapdragon 888 chipset promises a 35% boost in graphics performance over the last generation of Qualcomm 8 serial silicon. Qualcomm has also fabricated gaming 1 of the pillar features on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders, including Snapdragon Aristocracy Gaming features designed to bring a panel-similar feel to mobile devices.
That ways features like Variable Charge per unit Shading, which not but boosts gaming operation but besides offers better resolution and higher frame rates while consuming less ability. The phone besides supports Qualcomm's Game Quick Touch engineering that boosts responsiveness on games by upwards to 20%.
I have no way of verifying whether that helped with the games I played on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. Simply whether I was turbo-boosting my way past the competition in Asphalt ix: Legends or diggings at the competition in PUBG Mobile, I didn't discover any graphical lags and the controls did what I expected them to exercise when I pressed the on-screen buttons. If there'south one area where the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders definitely delivers, information technology'due south in supporting demanding games, making this one of the best gaming phones, if you're willing to put up with its loftier cost.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders camera
Only equally important as the gaming experience to Qualcomm is what you can do with the cameras on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. To that end, Qualcomm has opted for a setup that mirrors what you'd expect from a top-of-the-line camera phone. A 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor provides the main camera, with 12MP ultrawide and 8MP telephoto lenses joining that shooter on the back of the phone. The telephoto lens is capable of a 3x zoom.
Information technology's non just the optics on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders that matter, though, with the software too having a few notable features. The device uses a Spectra 580 triple Internet access provider that aims to produce stellar shots no matter the lightning conditions. In item, Qualcomm calls out the phone'southward prowess with low-light shots and the bokeh effect produced in its portrait images. The ISP also teams with the phone AI Engine to lock on on what you're shooting and keep it in focus.
Despite the considerable attempt Qualcomm puts into both camera hardware and smarts, the results were mixed when I compared photos taken by the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders with those from an iPhone 12, 1 of the all-time camera phones we've tested in the last year.
When shooting an apple growing on the tree in my backyard, the Qualcomm phone did an first-class job balancing the afternoon sunlight to create a colorful shot that highlights the strips of red streaking across the apple. The iPhone 12 photograph is probably the more authentic of the two, but the Qualcomm shot is more pleasing to the middle.
Moving inside to a restaurant at night, a plate of lasagna doesn't evidence upwards also in the photo from the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. That shot is darker than I like and the decorative splatters of olive oil are lost on the plate. Everything about the iPhone 12 shot — the tomato sauce, the herbs dotting the top of the lasagna — looks more vibrant.
Qualcomm's pride in its low-light photos is justified when I tried out the phone's nighttime mode, in this backyard scene lit only past a string of greenish LED lights overhead. I think the Qualcomm phone did a better chore of balancing the light-green lighting of the scene, as the iPhone gets a little too aggressive in trying to brighten the image. That said, in the iPhone shot, you can detect some of the colors of the stuffed animals, whereas everything's the same shade of green in the Qualcomm photo.
I was less impressed past how the Qualcomm phone handled portrait shots. It gets the color of my face right, though my features look a little bit sharper in the iPhone 12 portrait shot, peculiarly when y'all zoom in. The major difference here is the background mistiness — not only does the iPhone 12 offer a more artistic blur, it does a better job of figuring out where I stop and the groundwork begins. If you look closely on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders photograph, the wisps of beard on the left side of the shot have disappeared into the background blur.
To examination out the telephoto and ultrawide lenses, I switched to an iPhone xi Pro Max for comparison shots, since it has a dedicated telephoto lens like the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. Despite the fact that the iPhone 11 Pro Max is nearly two years old and that its telephoto lens tops out at 2x, it gets the better of Qualcomm's phones in both comparisons.
Neither zoom shot is particularly skillful — the Oakland skyline is fuzzy in both photos — just there'south besides fuzziness in the foreground of the Qualcomm photo. Even worse, while it was an overcast twenty-four hour period when I took these photos, the iPhone 11 Pro Max manages to find some blue in the sky. Everything in the Qualcomm shot looks gray and muted.
That continues when we switch to a broad angle view of the same shot. The Qualcomm photo is amend than the telephoto one — like the iPhone xi Pro Max, information technology manages to capture the reflection of the boats on the water. But again the heaven is washed out and lacks the blueish hue of the iPhone shot.
By far, though, the most disappointing images from the Smartphone for Snapdragon insiders comes the device's 24MP selfie cam. The photo produced by that camera seems to take struggled with focus and color, making my peel look blotchy and blurred. That's not an event with the iPhone 12 shot, where my skin is at to the lowest degree the right colour.
Non everyone shares my stance about the lackluster performance of the Qualcomm'due south phone cameras. As this Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders hands-on is being published, camera experts DXOMark is giving the telephone a high score for its cameras, rating information technology No. one among U.Due south. camera phones. Of grade, DXOMark has the reward of testing the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders with a software update that wasn't available to me. That software update, coming later this calendar month, improves camera tuning, autofocus, texture and racket performance and dark shot quality. Hopefully, information technology addresses the problems I ran into; we'll revisit this hands-on if it does.
Too notwithstanding images, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders offers both 8K and 4K video capture, with the latter shot at either 60 or xxx fps. (8K video is simply available at 30 fps.) The video footage I shot looks smooth and free of milk shake. I was less impressed with an auto-tracking characteristic that keeps the camera focused in on a subject area of your choosing, even as they move effectually; I ran into problems with focus and auto-zooms that I'm hoping to see corrected when the promised photographic camera software update arrives.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders audio
The photographic camera feel isn't the only incomplete 1 I came across while using the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders. Qualcomm has also placed an emphasis on audio, with back up for Snapdragon Sound. This new technology from the chip maker is supposed to deliver 24-fleck 96kHz music streaming every bit well as back up for super wideband voice to meliorate your sound on telephone calls. To power that sound experience, the phone ships with Master & Dynamic's MW08SI wireless earbuds, which feature agile noise cancellation.
Unfortunately, the review unit supplied by Qualcomm featured pre-production earbuds that weren't enabled to back up Snapdragon Sound. That means no loftier-resolution music streaming or super wideband voice — not for me anyhow. There was an over-the-air software update for the MW08SI earbuds meant to address some minor bugs, but repeated attempts to download it proved fruitless.
So I tin only address the experience I had with the earbuds and the dual speakers on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders, features which were very incomplete at this point. At to the lowest degree the earbuds evangelize strong bass, with the drumline that opens Imagine Dragon'south "Monster" rumbling in my ears. College tones sounded a bit more muted to my ear, though, with the Girls5Eva vocal "Infinite Boys" sounding a lot cleaner when I listened using a pair of AirPods continued to an iPhone 11 Pro Max. Perhaps the software update for the MW08SI earbuds will straighten that out, one time I go it to download.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders 5G and Wi-Fi connectivity
The final marquee feature in Qualcomm'southward smartphone is one that people may non capeesh right now, specially if they're sticking shut to home. Simply every bit 5G networks go on to aggrandize, you'll detect the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders boasts extensive 5G options — "comprehensive support" for both sub-6GHz and millimeter wave-based bands, Qualcomm says. The X60 modem on the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders should deliver summit speeds, too.
At least, that'southward the theory. I oasis't been in any hurry to upgrade to a 5G phone myself and and then I don't have any 5G sim available to take the phone out for a spin. (Even if I did, I'm non sure how much faster download speeds would be over LTE at this stage in 5G's development.) I promise to exist able to test out 5G operation on this phone shortly.
Closer to habitation, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders too supports Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, the latter of which adds back up for 6GHz wireless spectrum. Both flavors of Wi-Fi 6 should speed up your connectivity — at to the lowest degree if yous've upgraded to a Wi-Fi half-dozen router that's capable of delivering this improved performance to any compatible devices on your home network.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders bombardment and charging
The Smartphone for Snapdragon insiders supports Qualcomm'due south QuickCharge 5 technology, which promises super-fast charging. Co-ordinate to Qualcomm, 30 minutes of charging should get an uncharged phone to 70%, while y'all can expect the telephone to exist fully charged after 52 minutes or so.
That wasn't quite what I experienced when I plugged a drained Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders into the included 65-watt charger and started a stopwatch. After half-an-hour, the phone hit 46% — off Qualcomm'southward promised step — though subsequently an hr, the phone was essentially charged at 96%. Later in my testing, the battery indicator dipped below 20%, and in the fourth dimension it took me to shower, dress and comb my hair, the phone was fully charged. That'due south fast enough for me.
But information technology's not the fastest charging phone. That honor goes to the OnePlus 9 Pro, which also supports 65W wired charging, and tin can go from drained to fully charged in a piddling more than 30 minutes. (There's a reason we gave the OnePlus telephone a Tom's Guide 2021 award.) The OnePlus 9 Pro supports 50W wireless charging, too — you tin't wirelessly charge the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders at all.
A 4,000 mAh bombardment keeps the Smartphone for Snapdragon insiders powered up. While we haven't run a formal Tom'south Guide bombardment test on this device — in that test, we set phones to surf the web over cellular until they run out of power — I'd await all-mean solar day power from this phone. I generally got around a 24-hour interval-and-a-one-half of standard phone employ from the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders before I had to plug in, so this is a phone that seemingly makes the most out of its battery life.
Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders outlook
Likely, any question y'all had almost whether to purchase the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders was answered the moment I mentioned how much it costs — something about a $1,500 price tag triggers the sound of wallets around the land snapping shut. Indeed, Qualcomm conspicuously does non anticipate this telephone selling like hotcakes, reserving information technology for members of its Snapdragon Insider programme instead of putting it out for wider release.
So why put out the phone when you lot know it's simply going to country in the hands of a express number of people? I call back it's considering Qualcomm wants to show the states what's possible — what kind of experiences its silicon can power when a telephone maker throws all restraint out the window and pushes a flagship Snapdragon organization-on-flake to its limits. In this sense, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders does put Qualcomm's best human foot tentatively forrard.
But non completely forward, every bit the need for software updates to fine-melody the photographic camera and audio experiences give the impression that this phone remains a work in progress. For that reason, nosotros're holding off on a terminal verdict and rating for the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders.
We can say that even if these promised updates practice significantly improve the telephone, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders won't be for everyone — the price tag assures that. Simply if future updates can improve the features plant in this device, it bodes well for future Android phones that turn to Snapdragon to deliver these kinds of experiences — ideally in more than affordable packages.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/qualcomm-smartphone-for-snapdragon-insiders
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