The Snapdragon 8 Elite is Qualcomm’s first smartphone SoC to come with fully custom Oryon cores, which just means a massive single-core and multi-core performance boost is guaranteed, combined with superior power efficiency and a huge improvement thanks to the Adreno 830. While all of these benefits are excellent to have, a major significance of the release of this chipset is its ability to allow flagship smartphone owners to keep their devices for longer, thanks to increased software updates. That’s right, Qualcomm has said that the Snapdragon 8 Elite will enable 8 years of software updates, but there are still some details worth discussing, so let’s get started.
Not all smartphones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite will receive software updates for eight years, as the remaining efforts will have to come from Qualcomm’s phone partners.
The San Diego company’s VP and GM of handsets, Chris Patrick, inquired Mishaal Rahman during the Snapdragon Summit that the Snapdragon 8 Elite will offer 8 years of software updates. To clarify, the company states that this includes the operating system pre-loaded in the smartphone, powered by the newly announced chipset, making it last 7 years, which is still a long time.
As you might have guessed, not all handsets will make it to the 7th anniversary, which isn’t Qualcomm’s fault. According to the Android Authority, smartphone manufacturers must make the necessary efforts to ensure that their devices receive these updates for 7 years. The customization process of customizing Qualcomm’s Android board support package with its own skin is also necessary, but some companies avoid this route because it costs more to hold people responsible for pushing out those updates.
Qualcomm will provide BSP support for the @ Snapdragon 8 Elite for 8 generations of Android releases.
By the way, that 8 includes the original OS release, which means Qualcomm supports 7 years of updates!#snapdragontop https://t.co/OBc85AOQNG
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) October 21, 2024
There have been cases where brands like Sony and others have released just one software update along with a few security patches, despite the fact that the Qualcomm SoCs in those devices supported a maximum of three to four years of updates. In short, improving the longevity of flagship smartphones is a collective effort, and we’re glad to see Qualcomm taking some initiative.