Qualcomm starts 2016 big: the Snapdragon 820 chipset and grabs Audi as customer. These announcements were made during the CES 2016 event, which takes place in Las Vegas.
CEO of Qualcomm, Steve Mollenkopf, gave away crucial information about the first smartphone to be powered by the company’s new Snapdragon 820 chipset.
The smartphone is called LeTV Le Max Pro – an odd name if I’ve ever seen one.
LeTV is a Chinese tech behemoth that has not expanded outside of the Middle Kingdom, yet. The LeTV Le Max Pro comes with an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which can be found at the back of the handset, and Qualcomm’s chipset will enable it to support WiFi 802.11 ad, also known as WiGig, notes Android Police.
The Snapdragon 820 will come packed with a home-grown quad-core Kryo proc that runs at 2.2 GHz. The graphics department will be handled by the insanely powerful Adreno 530 GPU. Qualcomm’s chipset will also support tri-band Wi-Fi, Quick Charge 3.0, and LTE Category 12 connectivity – the latter has proven to provide massive data speed.
The chip manufacturer hasn’t revealed any other information, apart from the proc details. There’s no info regarding pricing nor a set release date. Yet, we are hopeful that Qualcomm will shed some light on everything during the CES 2016 event, which is currently taking place.
Phone Arena picked a few rumours that suggest that the LeTV Le Max Pro will come with Google’s Android 6.0 Marshmallow, that the smartphone will showcase a 5.5-inch Quad HD display that’s capable of outputting a resolution of up to 1,400 x 2,400 pixels.
In other news, Mollenkopf also announced that the company has just signed a deal with Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit so 2017 model vehicles will have built-in Qualcomm-developed processors.
Mollenkopf continued to add that [the company] as well as Volkswagen, understands that the car is currently being reinvented, and technological advancements are changing how a vehicle is used, sold and even serviced.
And this is just the beginning, notes Qualcomm’s Chief Executive Officer.
Audi will make use of the chipmaker’s 620 chipset in its 2017 models, as well as their newly announced 820A processor that is specially designed for vehicles. The chip helps to power the car’s communications and infotainment.
The San Diego-based company is trying its hardest to broaden its horizon by slightly moving to other mediums outside of the smartphone industry, from where it gains the majority of its income.
Qualcomm has lost quite a lot of marketshare over the last year as competition in chipmaking in the mobile industry has been increasing. Stocks dropped 33 percent in 2015, and it marks the worst annual performance for the company since the tech bubble burst that took place in 2001.
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