Future low-cost Android smartphones could come with generative AI features that iPhone 15 users would envy.
Qualcomm has just unveiled the new Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, a relatively modest variant of one of its mid-range and low-cost chips that aims to bring on-device AI to them later this year.
Sanddragon 7s Gen 3 makes budget smartphones even more powerful.
As usual, Qualcomm's "s" segment is for the affordable smartphone market. The Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is the younger sibling of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 that was revealed a few months ago, although it's more of a fork of the standard Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 with some lower specs like a 2.5GHz clock speed for the main cores. However, the chip also offers support for 200MP photo capture and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity.
Compared to the old Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, the new Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 is a noticeable step forward. It boasts a 20% increase in CPU performance, a 40% increase in GPU performance, 12% higher power efficiency, plus a 30% increase in on-device AI capabilities.
On-device AI is seen as a marketing gimmick, but it clearly has an advantage as manufacturers look to pack more AI functionality into their smartphones. That’s why Qualcomm is focusing on this feature, saying that the new chip supports both Llama 2 and Baichuan-7B, as well as enhanced NPU functionality.
Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 specifications.
The average user won't benefit from these until apps take advantage of them, but that's still an advantage for the budget Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 smartphone over the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, which don't support Apple's Intelligence suite.
Qualcomm is advertising two AI features that will be immediately beneficial to buyers of mid-range and low-end smartphones powered by its chips. The first is on-device multilingual translation and transcription (no cloud required). The second is noise cancellation for phone and video calls.
We should see the first smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip appear in late 2024 or early 2025. Most major manufacturers selling mid-range or low-cost smartphones, including Samsung , will offer a device containing this chip.
