The Dragon has a champion. Qualcomm and Asus today unveiled the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders, a $1,499 phone that represents the full power of the Snapdragon 888 chipset, Qualcomm says.
"Never before has such a complete Snapdragon experience been brought together in one single amazing device," says Mike Roberts, Qualcomm's VP of product marketing.
Made by Asus—and Qualcomm wanted to make aggressively clear, this is an Asus phone—the SSI is a dark blue smartphone with red accents, with a glowing Snapdragon logo on the back. The phone is part of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Insiders program, an attempt by the chipmaker to drum up loyalty and passion for its Snapdragon processor line. Fans can sign up at SnapdragonInsiders.com to connect with the product teams and executives on social media.
"We wanted to offer our insiders something unique, something to showcase the value proposition of Snapdragon devices," Roberts says.
Like other ecosystem-partner companies, Qualcomm does things that don't make it to market because its partners decide not to go with them. We tend to see some of these tricks, usually camera capabilities, demoed at the Snapdragon Summit event each fall. Qualcomm's 65-watt QuickCharge 5 charging hasn't seen much uptake in US phones. Qualcomm's official list has only the RedMagic 6 and 6 Pro phones with QuickCharge 5. Its Snapdragon Sound high-res audio initiative has gotten off to a slow start, as well, with only Xiaomi on board so far.
So this phone is a chance to show off those features and ideas. With QuickCharge 5 and a charger in the box, the phone charges at 65w, filling 70% of its 4,000mAh battery in 30 minutes and topping off the battery in 52 minutes. The phone comes with Master & Dynamic Snapdragon Sound earbuds that support 24-bit, 96kHz audio and high-quality voice codecs.
On the back, there's a second-generation Qualcomm ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. Those have been popular (in the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, among other phones) but the fingerprint sensor market is pretty competitive, so Qualcomm wants to make a stand.
For gaming, the phone has a 6.78-inch, 2,448-by-1,080 Samsung AMOLED screen with a 144Hz screen refresh rate. That refresh rate isn't seen often on US phones, but it's the refresh rate most often cited by Qualcomm when it's doing Snapdragon Elite Gaming demos. A "quick touch" algorithm improves touch response by 20%, Roberts says. The phone is stuffed with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
The radio features are also pretty amazing here; this will be the best global-roaming phone ever. Phone makers almost always trim the set of frequency bands and radios they support, to target particular networks. This baby has everything. It's got C-band. It's got 5G-over-CBRS. It's got Wi-Fi 6E. It's got not only US millimeter-wave 5G, but Asian and European mmWave bands that haven't even been turned on yet. It has dual 5G SIM slots. The one thing it doesn't have is US carrier certification, but Qualcomm says it's working on that.
The three rear cameras are a 64MP main, 12MP ultra-wide and 8MP, 3x zoom. The front camera is a 24MP model.
The most shocking omission, though, is that there's no plan out of the gate to upgrade this phone beyond its stock, bloatware-free Android 11. While Qualcomm has committed to four years of security updates, the company says it hasn't sorted out an answer on Android version updates yet.
Qualcomm isn't committing to any future devices beyond this one. It's an experiment. This isn't the Surface or the Pixel (more on that below.) Maybe there will be another one. Maybe not.
This Phone Doesn't Compete! But It's Great?
Qualcomm wants to make it clear that while this phone is good, it is not better than any other Qualcomm-based phone, even though it is. But it also isn't. You got that?
"This device is not meant to compete with any of our OEM partners," Roberts says.
Qualcomm isn't a phone maker (anymore), and unlike Microsoft or Google, it doesn't appear to have the confidence to put out a hardware line that competes with its licensees. That results, in this case, with Qualcomm repeatedly saying that this is an "Asus device" and that it is for "this target audience of Snapdragon insiders," and—let's make clear—not a single other person.
This comes back to the delicate dance Microsoft and Google do with the Surface and Pixel, respectively, but it's even more delicate here. Microsoft and Google both use Surface and Pixel to experiment with new technologies or suggest ideas they'd like to see taken up by partners. Surface ignited the 2-in-1 form-factor market, and Pixel always has the latest Google software innovations. But their partners also have nowhere else to turn. HP isn't going to move to a different desktop OS. Samsung has tried to create its own smartphone OS twice, with Bada and Tizen, and failed both times.
Qualcomm's market is much, much more competitive. An even slightly miffed partner could turn to MediaTek Dimensity or Samsung Exynos in the West, or to Unisoc or Huawei in China. So while Google tacitly doesn't anger its OEMs by quietly not selling all that many Pixels, Qualcomm has to put up flags and fireworks to explain that this phone is in no way a threat to its Very Good Partners.
"All of our OEMs we love, and we don't want to be a 'this is better than that,'" Roberts says. But of course, if this isn't better than anything, why does it exist? Contradictions abound.
At $1,499, anyway, this phone is going to be a curiosity. There's room for that in the world! The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 costs $1,999 and it's fun as heck. As someone who has been using Qualcomm phones for 22 years, I like to think of myself as a Snapdragon insider, so hopefully I'll get one to review. The phone goes on sale in August through Asus's website.