Most powerful Android upgrade ever is coming to these phones

If you've been watching any of this season's Premier League action you may have noticed the word "Snapdragon" emblazoned on the shirts of the Manchester United stars. This brand might not be a household name but it powers many of the world's Android phones and there's big news about its future. Qualcomm, the US firm that makes Snapdragon processors, has just started its yearly technology showcase on the island of Maui in Hawaii and one of its biggest announcements is the launch of its latest smartphone chip which is simply called the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

This new brain, which will replace last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 as Qualcomm's flagship processor, is its most impressive to date with the tech giant boasting that the 8 Elite is "the most powerful and world ’s fastest mobile system-on-a-chip ever". A quick look at the stats and it certainly seems like a bit of a show stopper with Qualcomm promising 45% power improvements whilst cutting power by over 42%. That should mean phones using the Elite will be much quicker whilst using less battery life.

Another bonus is better gaming with console-style graphics and impressive ray tracing appearing on the display of your phone. The Elite has also been built to cope with future demands of AI with it offering faster responses and a better understanding of what the user is asking of it. The 8 Elite's AI can also improve photography and it has the power to automatically remove unwanted objects from video footage as well as your still images.

Improved connectivity and better sound are two more headline features of this chip. So what devices are getting the Elite upgrade? Although no phones have been announced, brands such as ASUS, Honor, iQOO, OnePlus, OPPO, RealMe, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi will all adopt this system in the future with some manufacturers poised to release call makers in the coming week. "We are so excited to bring the power of Qualcomm Oryon to our Snapdragon mobile platforms for the first time," said Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

"Earlier this year we debuted it in PCs, delivering remarkable experiences and unparallel battery life to PC users, energizing the industry and getting the attention of consumers. "Today, our second generation of the Qualcomm Oryon CPU debuts in our flagship Mobile Platform – it's a major leap forward and we expect consumers to be thrilled with the new experiences enabled by our CPU technology. "With leading CPU, GPU and NPU capabilities, the Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers dramatic performance enhancements and power efficiency 3.

In addition, it revolutionizes mobile experiences by offering personalized, multi-modal generative AI directly on the device enabling the understanding of speech, context, and images to enhance everything from productivity to creativity tasks while prioritizing user privacy." Expect more news on Elite-powered phones soon including the release of the Galaxy S25 which could be powered by it..