Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor last week. The key improvement is the enhanced AI that will work behind the scenes to improve the user experience on the phone due to launch in a few weeks.
This AI implementation should significantly improve most tasks, from how well the modem works to optimizing both voice and data connections for image capture, viewing, and improving overall power efficiency.
In short, the next generation of Snapdragon 8 premium smartphones should outperform any previous generation and any phone that doesn’t use Qualcomm technology (like, say, oh, iPhones).
Let’s talk about how AI will exponentially improve your smartphone experience, then close with my product of the week, an AMD-based business notebook from HP that’s the new norm in size and capacity for performance-oriented mobile workers. Could
Qualcomm’s coming AI disruption
2020 is likely to be known as the decade of AI. The vast majority of where artificial intelligence is used today is in externally-focused applications for sales and marketing. The AI we deal with most, such as those from Google and Apple, are not really AI at present, but speech front-ends for existing Internet search engines.
This is the reason why the promised experiences of Siri-like interactions on our phones have fallen short of expectations. But just as AI is evolving in the rest of the tech industry, so are the AI capabilities in our smartphones, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 solution is a significant AI boost.
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This AI improvement will initially benefit performance and battery life, both of which received criticism in the first generation of the Snapdragon 8.
For graphics performance, AI can be used to allow for real-time upsampling, resulting in better images for things like video and games, with less processing overhead, up to 25% faster GPU performance, 4.35 Up to times faster AI performance (depending on use case), and more efficient power usage for better battery life.
Now moving on to the feature improvements which are also important.
network, camera, sound
Networking improvements include Wi-Fi 7, the latest Wi-Fi technology, which should offer much faster data rates and potentially greater range. However, testing will have to wait for the availability of Wi-Fi 7 routers that are expected to hit the market soon.
AI improvements to the camera include more accurate face and object recognition, including a sharp increase in processor-intensive features like background blue, which has become popular for video calls since the pandemic (since we all share our offices). don’t keep it neat enough to do).
Expect AI camera features to better provide for automatic picture editing, making the resulting image look more professional and all objects in the frame clearer. The new camera capability should include 8K HDR video encoding, which is coming in time for 8K TVs and monitors to ramp up in 2023 and hopefully cost much less than we have today.
For most of us, it’ll just be premature obsolescence protection, assuring that when we finally do get an 8K display, we’ll have something we can show on it.
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Improved image segmentation enables the camera to better capture or block out elements at different depths in the picture, allowing the AI to apply custom lighting and contrast to these elements to make them pop out of the image. want to see and more easily allow you to remove whatever you want from the picture, like your cousin photobombing you.
Hear significantly enhanced sound with levels of active noise cancellation that many of us have only experienced. In the demo, turning on this feature seemed to remove all external noise except for the speaker’s voice, which is important for those of us either calling or doing video conference calls in noisy environments Huh. This technology is potentially applicable to both smartphones and laptops.
futuristic mix of smartphone and laptop
Most of the features showcased with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor will also be available on the laptop. With Microsoft removing the need for emulation from the Arm processor, the performance jump on laptops based on this part should be much greater than it would have been for the newer processors.
This opens the door to a new hybrid product potential that allows a single device to meet the needs of both a laptop and a smartphone with accessories for use cases, creating a unique advantage for this superior Qualcomm technology .
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Longer battery life, greater performance, and the vastly improved videoconferencing capability that x86-based systems can exceed will go a long way toward turning Qualcomm-based PCs from niche products to mainstream offerings.
Furthermore, the ever-tighter integration of smartphone and laptop use cases could ultimately result in a hybrid solution that renders both existing platforms obsolete and creates something new that is potentially more capable, less expensive, and less demanding. is complex enough to support very different offerings today. ,
Conclusion: Our AI Future
AI applied to our personalized technology that promises far better pictures and sound Automatic, advanced, and more easy-to-use security features such as biometrics Better network and system performance Longer battery life and longer battery life Is.
However, this is only the beginning of the AI revolution, as the changes to come will edit your video image in real time to make sure you look your best in pictures, movies and especially video calls, and make your device look like the real world. Allow problems to be solved better. — Like real-time foreign language translation.
With improvements in head-mounted displays, mixed reality technologies and the coming metaverse revolution, we are at the tip of the iceberg that new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 solutions are anticipated. As amazing as it is, the best is yet to come.
HP EliteBook 865 G9
There was a time when there was a huge difference in price and performance between Intel and AMD notebooks. Intel-based systems performed better, especially with regard to battery life in laptops, but they cost more. The AMD notebook performed nearly as well, but took a bigger battery life hit and cost less. Those days are essentially over, as shown by this latest HP EliteBook 865 G9.
It’s an AMD-based, high-performance notebook with good battery life and the first notebook with USB 4, matching Intel’s Thunderbolt technology in terms of performance. As you’d expect, a product with performance that potentially exceeds Intel’s with a larger screen and total security will be expensive, so expect a price tag of around $2,000 when fully configured. The admission price is closer to $1,500, depending on the specials available at the time of purchase.
HP EliteBook 865 G9 Notebook PC | Image credit: HP
The 16-inch display works well in a coach seat on a plane for movies and is probably the largest display you can reasonably use while in coach, though not comfortably unless you have Don’t have an extended legroom seat. Otherwise the keyboard is too close.
The HP EliteBook 865 G9 also comes with LTE-A Pro if you want WAN network capability on top of its Wi-Fi 6E capability. It’s got integrated AMD Radeon graphics, so it’s no gaming box, but it plays the games I play mostly just fine, and streamed or downloaded movies and TV shows are amazing, which I used it the most while traveling on an aeroplane. ,
Battery life for video playback is an impressive 20-plus hours, with the only downside being the display, which is an adequate IPS panel but would have been better with a 4K OLED option that wasn’t available this round.
Finally, with HP’s pioneering Wolf security package, which is critically important in this less-secure digital world, the HP EliteBook 865 G9 is the perfect offering for the road warrior who also wants a decent-sized screen — and This is my product of the week.
