Qualcomm goes freestyle: Snapdragon 820 will support unlicensed spectrum

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 820 will support carrier aggregation with unlicensed spectrum – LTE-U, part of the new X12 LTE modem – which allows operators to combine unrestricted spectrum with their own licensed holdings to get more bandwidth. While the Snapdragon 820 isn’t expected to ship until the middle of next year, it is …

[Buzzword]

The meta-story is that new Qualcomm chip releases are as exciting as new Intel releases were 10-30 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't read the intent (sarcasm?) but, to me, this a pretty neat SoC. Reading the features to date I was wondering how I can get one to play with. I have zero interest in a flying drone but other types, hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing it supports 802.11ad

The 867 Mbps that ac supports is obviously not enough since of course everyone has gigabit broadband at home now.

[N13L5]

Waiting till next fall then, to get a phone that doesn't overheat when using the camera :p

I've seen consumers blame Qualcomm for their phones overheating with the 810, but that's silly as it is the phone manufacturer's engineering department that's responsible to design their gadget so it handles whatever they install - or else, choose a different chip that they *can* keep sufficiently cool.

LG and Samsung were smart enough to take a pass. Others, including Sony installed it anyway, with the result that their phones cook themselves, even if you're not taking video in 4k. Its enough to run google maps while video taping the road in 1080p

It gets so hot, it cooks the waterproof glue holding the back panel - which eventually just comes loose or falls off entirely.

I still don't feel like buying an LG or Samsung phone, so I just reverted to some oldies from my drawer: a Note 2 and an S5. They don't overheat and they still have SD card slots.

We're getting to the point in the smartphone market where new devices have drawbacks and missing features in comparison to older devices... alarming.