New Snapdragon hardware to make powerful Android phones cheaper – and one could be just round the corner

This new Snapdragon hardware will be a cheaper route to flagship phones

Quick summary

Qualcomm has announced its sub-flagship hardware, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. The new hardware will power more affordable flagship devices.

There's a slight reduction on the clock speed and it uses a different modem, but otherwise it's much the same as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in September and has now followed-up with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. The aim of this hardware is to provide a more affordable route to flagship power and will result in more affordable high-end Android phones.

Qualcomm announced its new flagship hardware at Snapdragon Summit in September 2025, with that hardware rapidly making its way into the likes of the OnePlus 15. But alongside that announcement, Qualcomm also confirmed that it would be announcing a non-Elite version, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5.

This hardware effectively replaces the previous "s" versions, meaning that the Elite and the non-Elite make a little more hierarchical sense when ranged alongside each other. Qualcomm refers to having two "premium tier offerings" and we've already seen the first phone announced using the hardware, the OnePlus 15R, although the official launch isn't until 17 December.

Qualcomm compares the advancements to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in its announcement, but a better comparison is to the hardware it will sit alongside, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Fortunately, most of the chip's skills are the same, but there are a few tweaks that will step down the performance slightly.

That sees the new 8 Gen 5 clocked at 3.8GHz compared to the 8 Elite Gen 5's 4.6GHz, while the new chip has the X80 model compared to the X85 – so offers slightly lower peak data speeds. There will be other minor differences in the GPU power and storage support, although on the whole, it's likely to be the lower clock speed that makes a difference.

In fact, that might also be attractive. There are reports that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 can get a little hot and the lower clock speed might save customers from that problem. The other side of the new lower-spec flagship chip is that it will power slightly more affordable devices, which are usually just as good for everyday tasks as the top models.

Qualcomm has confirmed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 will be appearing in devices from Honor, Motorola, Vivo and others, with the first launched in "the coming weeks". Seeing as OnePlus has already confirmed that it's using the chip, we're guessing that's going to be the first device.

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Others are expected to follow soon after: with Motorola announcing its skinny Edge 70 recently, the Edge 70 Ultra could be a good guess, while Honor has already revealed the Honor Magic 8 Pro, so something else could be in the wind.