Qualcomm has revealed its new flagship chipset destined for release in flagship Androids in late 2025 and much of 2026 in the form of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
Aside from the mouthful of a name, the new chipset – complete with a third-gen Oryon CPU architecture – looks to offer massive gains in performance and efficiency across the board.
That alone isn’t a surprise; of course, a new flagship processor will be faster than its predecessor.
But considering last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite already offered a massive jump in overall performance, Qualcomm’s promises of better CPU, GPU and NPU performance from the latest chipset mean it could very well be the fastest processor around – and possibly compete for Apple’s long-held title of most powerful mobile chipset on the market.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite made significant strides in this effort against Apple’s A18 Pro, and it appears that the Gen 5 could finally achieve it.
The 8 Elite was amazing, but the Elite Gen 5 leaves it in the dust
The Snapdragon 8 Elite really impressed me at launch last year. I was accustomed to Qualcomm’s dominance of the Android market with its top-end chipsets, but in reality, they were still underpowered compared to what Apple offered with its equivalent iPhone chipsets.
In reality, that meant that even the best Android phones couldn’t hold a candle to what Apple was offering with the best iPhones.
But that started to change with the release of last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. As we’ve since seen from the litany of 8 Elite equipped-flagships in 2025, performance is good – very good. And not just for an Android, but for any smartphone on the market.
It was mainly down to the introduction of Qualcomm’s previously desktop-exclusive Oryon CPU architecture, allowing for significant year-on-year gains in the region of 40% across CPU, GPU and NPU.
The result was a chipset that could go toe-to-toe with Apple’s equivalent A18 Pro – in most respects, anyway. Apple still excelled in high-end ray-traced benchmark tests in our experience, as well as single-core CPU performance, but Qualcomm closed the gap in many other regards.
That’s why Qualcomm’s promises of a 20% CPU uplift, a 23% GPU jump and 37% faster NPU within the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 are so impressive. It could finally be enough to close the gap in sustained GPU and single-core workloads between it and Apple’s new A19 Pro.
2026 Androids could actually outpace iPhones – but it needs more than raw power
Looking forward to late 2025 and 2026 flagship Android releases, it’s not inconceivable to imagine a world where 8 Elite Gen 5-equipped phones outperform iPhones in specific tasks like long gaming sessions, on-device video exporting, and heavy multitasking. The uptick in CPU, GPU, and NPU all suggests this could be the case, building on the 8 Elite’s already steady foundation.
However, you need more than just a powerful chipset to deliver top-end performance – and that’s an area that Qualcomm can’t control. It’s up to Android phone manufacturers to pair the chipset with suitable thermal design, battery size, memory and software tuning – and that’s not always a given.
We already see this from Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered phones like the OnePlus 13 and even the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra; while they’re rapid in everyday use and can handle basically anything thrown at them, they can still get warm during sustained use, and this has a knock-on effect on battery life.
Apple, on the other hand, is an old hand when it comes to hardware optimisation, with a long-held reputation for how it marries software and hardware to deliver snappy performance and consistent battery life – and that’s really why the iPhones continue to shine, even if they don’t always win against Android flagships in terms of pure specs.
In essence, while Qualcomm has provided Android makers with a shot at making a phone more powerful than Apple’s equivalent top-end iPhone 17 Pro Max, it’s down to manufacturers to optimise their smartphone designs to get it across the finishing line – and that’s where things could falter.
The 8 Elite Gen 5 is about more than just raw power
Of course, there’s more to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 than raw performance numbers – even if that is what gets us smartphone nerds hooked.
Qualcomm has also introduced new functionality powered by the latest chipset, including support for Advanced Professional Video (APV) recording that essentially allows for higher-quality video capture that’s more flexible in post-production.
The catch, yet again, is that it’s at the manufacturer’s discretion as to whether this feature is implemented into their smartphones – so just because the chipset can support it, it doesn’t mean it will.
Qualcomm has also promised improvements in on-device processing, meaning a boost to elements like noise suppression in calls, camera processing and image editing tech – and it’s arguably these features that’ll make more of an impact on consumers than raw performance anyway.
So, while the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 doesn’t guarantee that next year’s Android flagships will truly outpace the iPhone 17 Pro’s A19 Pro, Qualcomm has definitely provided manufacturers with the tools they need. I’ll certainly be interested to see how the first Gen 5-equipped Androids benchmark as they’re released in the coming weeks and months.
