Qualcomm’s hardware partners are unlikely to pursue the company’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 because it lacks the required performance punch. Fortunately, the upcoming Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 SoC could be outfitted with 10-inch tablets, providing Qualcomm’s clients with some incentive to push product launches that will compete with Apple’s iPad lineup.
Unlike other companies that test prototypes or reference designs for future product development, Qualcomm has been testing software development since November 2022, according to WinFuture. While no specific launch dates have been provided, the report claims that, in addition to being used in larger 13-inch notebooks, the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 could also be found in smaller 10-inch models.
This means that hardware manufacturers could release devices that can run either Android or Windows, and the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 could provide enough performance to support both platforms.
While the SoC should have no trouble running Android, Microsoft and Qualcomm’s Achilles’ heel has been integrating with Windows. From the lack of app support to the poor performance, all of these negative aspects have kept consumers from seriously considering such products.
This is where Apple has thrived, repurposing its older chipsets and incorporating them into low-cost iPad models, resulting in a massive market share. An early sample of the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 is said to be manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm node at 3.00GHz, so we believe it should not have any thermal issues when running in a 10-inch tablet. The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 is a 12-core CPU with eight performance cores and four power-efficiency cores.
Other appealing features of the SoC, as revealed by an earlier specification leak, include integrated 5G, Wi-Fi 7, support for external GPUs, and more, which should pique the interest of Qualcomm’s hardware partners. It’s also possible that the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 runs at lower frequencies when used in smaller tablets, such as Apple’s M2 iPad Pro, because the CPU in the tablet runs slower than the same silicon used in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.
Also Read:
