Qualcomm has revealed the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 Mobile Platform, an expansion of the 8 series to a slightly more affordable price point. Traditionally, the 8 series (like the new 8 Gen 3) powered top-end "flagship" phones, and the 7 series chips powered "affordable flagship" phones one tier below that. The "s" designator in 8s represents an expansion of the Snapdragon naming scheme to create a new sub-tier between "8" and "7" or "7+". The specs of the new Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 are effectively a blend of the current 8 Gen 3 and last year's 8 Gen 2. Qualcomm says that AI and camera are two areas where Qualcomm hasn't compromised, bringing over nearly the full capabilities of the 8 Gen 3. This includes the ability to perform generative AI and run multi-modal AI models with up to 10 billion parameters, all on-device. The 8s Gen 3 borrows several other features from full 8 Gen 3, including Arm Cortex-X4 architecture for the prime CPU core, support for up to 24 GB of RAM, USB version 3.1 Gen 2, and Bluetooth 5.4. Other specs are similar to last year's 8 Gen 2, such as an X70 modem (instead of X75) and 4200 MHz maximum RAM speed (instead of 4800). One area that puts it below both the 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 3 is video capture, which tops out at 4K instead of 8K. Qualcomm expects the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 to appear in phones launching globally, and soon (in a few months or even weeks.) Read on for a more detailed comparison between the 8 Gen 2, 8s Gen 3, and 8 Gen 3.


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