Snapdragon 8 Gen 2: specs tease the possibility of a 200MP Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will have to compete with Google's Tensor G3 and Apple's A17 Bionic in the latter half of 2023

➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

• 📸 Qualcomm just teased Samsung Galaxy S23’s 200MP camera in a leak

• 📱 15 other Android phone brands will use this flagship-level chipset

• 🙅‍♂️ Basically in all major 2023 phones except Google Pixel 8 & iPhone 15

• 🧠 Smarter, contextually aware camera and AI with INT support

• 🎮 Mobile gaming to push real-time hardware-accelerated ray tracing

• 🗼 World’s first 5G AI processor in a mobile platform

• 📶 Only WiFi 7 SoC with High Band Simultaneous Multi-Link

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset will power most flagship Android phones, and this very likely (almost certainly) includes the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is rumored to be getting a massive 200MP camera (what’s beyond ‘Space Zoom’?). Newer rumors suggest a February 1 Samsung Galaxy S23 launch date and four Galaxy S23 colors.

The chipset’s official unveiling was today, with Qualcomm shedding light on what to expect in the coming months. We have both the list of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phone manufacturers as well as the specs from the keynote.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit keynote can be watched here, but why wait? The juicy info is below.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones

Before I get to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 specs, let’s explore the smartphone brand names that will utilize the powerful new chipset. That’s always everyone’s first question anyway.

• Asus ROG

• Honor

• iQOO

• Motorola

• nubia

• OnePlus

• OPPO

• Redmagic

• Redmi

• Sharp

• Sony Xperia

• Vivo

• Xiaomi

• Meizu

• ZTE

• *Samsung (see below)

Will Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2?

Yes, the Qualcomm press release doesn’t name Samsung in its laundry list, but that’s not usual, and the 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset is widely rumored to be a part of the new handset (just like in past years when Samsung and Qualcomm have teamed up). Plus, I don’t foresee Samsung using its sometimes-troubled Exynos chipset globally in 2023.

As you can see from the chipset specs below, Samsung’s 200MP camera is teased, so that’s confirmation enough for most people that Samsung is onboard.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 camera specs

Qualcomm is billed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 as the faster, smarter and more power-efficient sequel to last year’s chipset. Meaning: the usual. But there’s one area that piques my interest.

The chipset will have the first Cognitive ISP, meaning it’ll automatically enhance photos and videos in real-time with semantic segmentation and use an AI neural network to make the camera contextually aware of faces, facial features, hair, clothes, skies and more. This should result in richer, more optimized photos and fewer phone cameras that struggle to comprehend what they’re seeing.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has also been tuned to support new image sensors, according to Qualcomm. The company’s first example is the Sony Semiconductor Solutions quad digital overlap HDR technology that’s been further fine-tuned for Snapdragon.

Even more exciting, it actually names the Samsung ISOCELL HP3 and drops the news that this will be the first 200-megapixel image sensor optimized for Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. “This is also the first Snapdragon to include an AV1 codec with support for video playback up to 8K HDR at 60 frames per second,” notes Qualcomm.

While megapixels don’t always mean what you think they mean, a 200MP camera would be a major sizeable upgrade over the 108MP Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, which used the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in the US and the Samsung Exynos 2200 in most other countries.

I’ll be watching the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit from an overcast NYC – as we prep for Black Friday deals and more PS5 restock news – just to see if there are more details about the exciting future of smartphones.