Qualcomm Releases ‘Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders’ for Pre-Order

Usually spending $1,500 on a smartphone is an activity reserved for Apple fans, but Qualcomm is breaking the mold. Its first-ever smartphone is officially available for pre-order, and despite its quirky name—literally just “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders”—it has a lot to offer.

Qualcomm, which has made itself into one of the biggest names in CPUs, has long offered Snapdragon as a suite of system on a chip (SoC) semiconductor products, including its most recent Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform. The company’s “Snapdragon Insiders” program allows fans of the suite access to behind-the-scenes material and other perks, including the opportunity to help shape the future of Snapdragon products by sharing their opinions. The community currently boasts over 1.5 million members.

For a company that doesn’t seem to be competing with the typical mobile phone players (like Apple and Samsung), Qualcomm seems to have picked up on consumers’ rising expectations in what a smartphone should be able to accomplish. The company says users will enjoy a “professional-quality” photo-taking experience thanks to three individual rear cameras and Qualcomm’s Spectra 580 ISP. If you’ve ever felt the need to shoot video in 8K at 2.7GP per second, this is the phone for you.

Qualcomm’s smartphone contains a 6th-gen Qualcomm® AI Engine with 26 TOPS AI performance. Snapdragon powers what the company calls “premium audio performance” via dual Bluetooth 5.2 antennas, and using Qualcomm’s Gen 2 3D Sonic Sensor, users can unlock their phone with dry and wet fingerprints. The phone also appears to be a great option for those who place speed at the top of their priority list: with 5G and WiFi 6 capability, users can enjoy 7.5GBps downlink and 3GBps uplink. Even gamers might meet their match with the Qualcomm Andreno 660 GPU and Game Quick Touch, the latter of which is intended to increase touchscreen responsiveness by 20%.

If you don’t find the $1,500 price tag worth the hardware alone, Qualcomm is including a bundle of goodies with each phone. (See, Apple? It isn’t that hard.) Among them are Snapdragon earbuds, a Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 Technology 65W charger, an anti-slip phone bumper, and braided USB-C cables (one 1.2m USB-C to USB-C, one 0.5m USB-C to USB-A).

Those interested in pre-ordering the smartphone must first register as a Snapdragon Insider and can do so on Qualcomm’s website.

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