Qualcomm has just announced the Snapdragon 821 chipset, and it is more than likely that the SoCs will be the ones powering the next-gen Google Nexus 2016 flagships.
Google has yet to officially announce that 2016 editions of the Nexus lineups are coming out, although many fans already expect the announcement anytime soon. The tech giant is releasing its newest Android platform, Android Nougat, reportedly as early as August. Meanwhile, it has been a norm that major Android version updates come out with new Nexus flagships as their launching vehicles.
In addition, Google has been known to use Qualcomm chipsets for its Nexus devices, unlike other flagships which may use other SoCs or homegrown processors (Samsung has Exynos, Huawei has Kirin).
The Snapdragon 821 chipset has been rumored for some time now, and speculations suggest that this will be the chipsets featured in late-2016 flagship releases. Aside from the 2016 Google Nexus iterations, the SD 821 chipset is also rumored to come out for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the Xiaomi Mi Note 2 and Mi 5s and some new iterations from current-gen flagships. Out of all the rumored flagships, Asus has confirmed that their next batch of ZenFone 3 Deluxe will carry the new Qualcomm processor.
While the SD 821 is said to be a higher version of the current-gen Snapdragon 820 processor, there are improvements in its architecture. It has a faster Kyro CPU, clocked at 2.4 GHz versus the SD 820's 2.2 GHz. In addition, there are also improvements and tweaks on the processes for the SoC, making the SD 821 more energy-efficient and deliver faster and better performance.
In a statement, Qualcomm confirms, "The Snapdragon 821 is engineered to deliver a 10 percent performance increase over the 820 with the Qualcomm Kryo quad-core CPU, reaching speeds up to 2.4GHz. Why would you introduce something to replace what many consider the best mobile processor available today? Simple, we're not. Rather than replace the Snapdragon 820, the 821 is designed to complement and extend the competitive strengths of our Snapdragon 800 lineup."
