Tag: Qualcomm

While the focus at Mobile World Congress tends to be on new phones, that doesn’t mean that component manufactures aren’t there and making their own announcements.  Qualcomm is a good example with their announcement of the new Snapdragon 700 System-on-Chip (SoC) processors.

The best way to think of the new 700 series is that it brings all the best bits from the more expensive 800 series while giving a more budget friendly price like the 600 series.   The new series will have the Spectra image processing of the 800 series as well as the AI engine.  It will feature Quick Charge 4.0, Bluetooth 5.0 and, according to Qualcomm, will be 30% more power efficient over the 600 series.

Chip manufacture Qualcomm has confirmed that they are interested in providing their SoC solutions for Chromebooks, but only on premium devices.  The news came from PCMag which reported that the company’s new director of product management, Monte Giles, is only interested if the average sale price of Chromebooks goes up higher.

“if the Chromebook market stays at sub-$300 [average selling prices] it’s not that interesting to us,” Giles said. Qualcomm wants to make premium Chromebooks, apparently. “What we’re watching closely is when the [average selling prices] start to go above $500.”

This would sit well with previous commits that suggest a Qualcomm-based Chromebook found in the Chrome OS Gerrit.