Image: Qualcomm

Qualcomm just announced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the latest mobile platform that will power flagship smartphones for the next year. The announcement was made during the company's annual Snapdragon Summit. 

The list of improvements is long and spans all areas of the Android experience. For instance, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor includes new Snapdragon Elite Gaming features like real-time hardware-accelerated ray-tracing, a 25% GPU performance boost and a 40% Qualcomm Kyro CPU boost. 

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As for connectivity -- an area that Qualcomm continues to push forward -- the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 uses the Snapdragon X70 5G modem and uses Qualcomm's 5G AI Processor to improve speeds, latency, and power usage. It also brings official support for two 5G SIMs at the same time. The FastConnect 7800 system adds Wi-Fi 7 support to Android, which is a Wi-Fi standard that's not quite, but promises improved speeds among other things. 

Qualcomm is also promising improved AI performance thanks to a new Qualcomm Hexagon processor. Camera improvements, including better detection of faces, facial features, hair and clothes and optimizing photos and videos with those objects in mind, is also included in the new chip.

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As for how soon you'll see Android phones using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile platform? According to Qualcomm, the wait won't be very long, with devices expected to arrive before the end of the year.

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