It seems that our guesses regarding many upcoming flagships may be slightly off the mark. If Chinese publication ITHome is to be believed then Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Google Pixel 2 and some other upcoming devices as well (may be Nokia 9 too) are expected to come not with Snapdragon 835 but Snapdragon 836 SoC, which is due for the next month release. If this happens, Galaxy Note 8 will be the first device to release with the latest chipset, and Pixel 2 or Nokia 9 may be second depending on which one comes first.
Snapdragon 836 is an upgraded version of its predecessor Snapdragon 835. It’ll have an octa-core design with up to 2.5 GHz clock rate (for larger cores), which is slightly higher than 2.45 GHz of its predecessor. However, other things are expected to be same. The GPU will be clocked at 740 MHz, and smaller cores will also retain the clock rate of 1.9 GHz. No other major differences are expected between 835 and 836, mainly because 845 is also in the pipeline for a release earlier next year. In fact, both are based on Samsung’s 10nm FinFET technology.
It’s also worth noting that this is not the first time when Qualcomm is releasing an incremental upgrade to an existing SoC. Earlier it did the same with launch of Snapdragon 821, which was the successor of Snapdragon 820. So now they seem to have set a trend: a major release earlier in the year, and an incremental upgrade of that SoC In next six months. Not bad, Qualcomm!
However, looking at this trend one thing is clear – if you want to purchase a high-end Android flagship, do that after July. That way you’ll end up slightly more powerful thing.