Apple upped the smartphone game with the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max thanks to their A18 Pro processor, a mobile chip that pushes the limits of what a phone can do in terms of raw power.
But Android phones are coming up fast in the rearview mirror – and one tech company believes they are about to overtake the iPhone.
Qualcomm has finally announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite, a chip that will be used exclusively in Android devices. Not only that, it’s been confirmed for three high-end Android phones to be officially announced and released soon.
If you want the most powerful Android phone in 2025, you’ll soon be able to get your hands on the OnePlus 13, Xiaomi 15, Honor Magic 7 Pro, Asus ROG Phone 9, all of which will run the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.
Qualcomm claims this powerful processor will be 45 percent more powerful than even the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the firm’s flagship processor from 2023 that’s nestled inside the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, OnePlus 12, Xiaomi 14 and Honor Magic 6 Pro.
Christopher Patrick, SVP and GM, Mobile Handset at Qualcomm, called the 8 Elite “a quantum leap” for mobiles and showed off impressive benchmark results that he said put it ahead of the competition. As well as raw power, the 8 Elite is promising improved battery efficiency, faster app launching, better multitasking performance, quicker video streaming, boosted gaming chops and, to fill all buzzword quotas, generative AI.
AI has been hard to ignore in the top smartphones of 2024 with all the aforementioned Android brands launching phones with software that offer buyers new tools to use that tap into AI. This is allegedly only possible with more powerful phone innards, but existing phones can already use AI to rewrite your emails, summarise your meeting notes, erase people or objects from photos and much more.
Whether or not you find those tools useful or interesting is another matter, though in testing the latest phones we’ve found AI is easy enough to ignore if you’re not fussed.
On stage at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit event in Maui, Hawaii, Honor showed off its upcoming Magic 7 Pro smartphone, which is reportedly launching on 30 October in China.
Similarly, Xiaomi confirmed its upcoming Xiaomi 15 series of phones will run the new chip, as will Asus’s specialist gaming phone series, the Asus ROG Phone 9 and the OnePlus 13, which is set to be announced this month.
Express.co.uk reviewed all the predecessors of these upcoming phones. The OnePlus 12, Xiaomi 14 Ultra, Honor Magic 6 Pro and Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro all impressed thanks to their use of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so we expect great things from the 8 Elite.
That said, the regular A18 chip in the iPhone 16 is more than powerful enough for most phone buyers, as is the MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ in the mid-range Xiaomi 14T Pro. Unless you want the best of the best in cutting edge mobile tech, you can spend less and still get a very powerful device.
But if you want an Android phone that will be as high-powered as the iPhone 16 Pro and its A18 Pro chip, it’s worth sitting tight and waiting to see which phone with a Snapdragon 8 Elite processor is the best fit for you.
