Qualcomm pushes latest Arm-powered Snapdragon chip amid bitter license fight

Qualcomm today finds itself in the peculiar position of announcing its latest flagship mobile processor that relies heavily on technology from an outfit suing the pants off it. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 system-on-chip features eight off-the-shelf cores from Arm, which is locked in a bitter legal fight with Qualcomm over licenses …

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Yawn

How many people would pay $1400 (typical flagship price) for a small increase in speed and the next round of whatever features are being cut by the maker?

I thought that cellphones could eventually be like always-online personal computers in your pocket that could be customized to do anything you want them to. Instead they're turning into web browsers in a glass slab.

[diodesign]

'they're turning into web browsers in a glass slab'

Far be it from me to do Qualcomm's PR for them but these chips are basically geared for gaming and photography, with enough oomph for modern apps and browsers.

If your mobile use-case only covers part of that - or the walled gardens of the OSes holds you back - then yeah, they will seem a bit limited. A lot of the 8 Gen 2 silicon is dedicated to things like real-time ray tracing in games (eg) so if that's not your cup of tea, it's a waste of transistor gates.

C.