That’s why competition is good.
what you need to know
- More details on the Snapdragon Wear 5100 have surfaced.
- The so-called chipset is likely to be built using the more efficient 4nm node, supporting up to 4GB of RAM.
- The Snapdragon Wear 5100 will have an additional “Plus” variant with a low-power co-processor.
With more and more wearable OEMs adopting the platform for their devices, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 series seems to be finally taking off. However, a new report claims that the details of Qualcomm’s next-generation chip, the Snapdragon Wear 5100, could feature some notable improvements over its predecessor.
According to WinFuture, the new chipset will be built using four ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz and an Adreno 702 GPU clocked at 700MHz. So far, that’s in line with what we’ve heard so far about the Snapdragon Wear 5100, which suggests it may not be much of an upgrade over the Snapdragon Wear 4100 with the same specs.
However, WinFuture suggests that the chipset is built on a 4nm process, which would make it more efficient than the current chip’s 12nm process. This would also put it ahead of the Exynos W920 in the Galaxy Watch 4, which is made using the 5nm process.
Additionally, the report suggests that Qualcomm is testing chips with 2GB and 4GB of RAM, which would put it above any of the best Wear OS watches we’ve seen so far. This means that not only do Wear OS watches run more efficiently, but they can also handle more apps and processes without slowing down.
Like the current generation, Qualcomm is reportedly preparing two versions of the chipset, including a “Plus” version with a low-power QCC5100 coprocessor. The chip, which is present in some of the best wireless earbuds, enables some machine learning capabilities for voice assistant processing and environmental tracking features like sleep monitoring and continuous heart rate.
Despite being nearly two years old, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 performs well on current Wear OS smartwatches and is even found in other wearables like smart glasses. That’s probably why the company doesn’t see the need for drastic changes to the upcoming chipset, focusing on efficiency, which Wear OS isn’t very good at. However, the details of the Snapdragon Wear 5100 may change before launch.
As for the release, WinFuture doesn’t seem to know when it will happen, but it will likely arrive around the same time as the wider release of Wear OS 3 later this year.
Wear the OS at its best
Samsung Galaxy Watch 4
$211 at Amazon $220 at Best Buy
the best gets better
As the only Wear OS 3 smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 4 is one of the best wearables you can buy. It’s fast, has a range of health and fitness tracking features, and works seamlessly with Galaxy smartphones.
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