14 DAY TRIAL // You might have gotten tired of hearing it, but Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chipset for premium devices qualifies for the title of biggest flop of this year. The SoC has an overheating problem that doesn’t seem to go away no matter how creative OEMs get in trying to dissipate the extra heat.
Case in point, the latest story on the matter comes from Xperia Z5 Compact owners (the phone launched at IFA 2015 early last month) who have started complaining that their Snapdragon 810-powered phone is exhibiting the dreaded overheating behavior.
While Sony plunged head-first into the Snapdragon 810 mess by recently launching three new phones based on the platform (Sony Xperia Z5, Xperia Z5 Compact, and Xperia Z5 Premium), other device makers have been more guarded and decided to adopt Qualcomm’s less powerful but safer chipset, the Snapdragon 808.
Sure, the Snapdragon 808 isn’t as powerful as the Snapdragon 810, but at least owners don’t have to worry about their phone catching on fire (metaphorically).
So let's take a tour and see which are the best smartphones incorporating the hexa-core chipset (with two ARM Cortex A57 cores and four ARM Cortex A53 cores) currently available on the market.
LG G4
LG was the first to make this bold move, and after putting the Snapdragon 810 inside its LG G Flex 2, it changed stance and embraced the Snapdragon 808 for its LG G4 flagship.
The phone arrives with a 5.5-inch display with 1440 x 2560 pixel resolution and 3GB of RAM. It also has a great camera (16MP variety) and is a very fine device overall. At launch, LG said that it chose not to use the Snapdragon 810 with its G4 not because of the “alleged” overheating issues, but because it had a plan of working with the Snapdragon 808 all along.
LG V10
LG might have said that it didn’t shun the Snapdragon 810 on purpose…but with its newest premium phone, the V10, it chose to go with the Snapdragon 808 once again. It’s pretty clear that LG will have none of the pesky overheating problems on its devices.
The V10 is a pretty interesting handset because it takes advantage of a secondary display living on top of the main one, which is used to display extra info like notifications, favorite apps shortcuts, and so on.
The handset features some amazing specs, which is why some of us wished that LG had waited for the Snapdragon 820 to make a flawless flagship package out of the V10. But even with the Snapdragon 808 on board, the phone is pretty solid.
It arrives with a larger 5.7-inch QHD display (2560 x 1440 pixel resolution) plus a 2.1-inch thicker secondary display, together with 4GB of RAM (the LG G4 only had 3GB) and 64GB of internal storage from the get-go. The smartphone also has a 16MP rear camera (the first to boast manual video mode) and a dual front-facing selfie camera setup (for 120-degree selfies).
Motorola Moto X Style
The Moto X lineup is one of those flagship families that offer great specs for affordable price tags. And this year’s Moto X Style does not disappoint. The phone features a 5.7-inch QHD display (1440 x 2560 pixels) like most self-respecting flagship smartphones appearing these days and enjoys the services of 3GB of RAM and 64GB of built-in storage.
One of the Moto X Style’s best features is probably the advanced 21MP main camera which will certainly help users snap great photographs. Motorola is offering the Moto X Style as the Moto X Pure in some regions.
Xiaomi Mi4c
The Xiaomi Mi4c is probably the cheapest smartphone from this lineup, selling in China for around $230 / €205. The device features a 5-inch display with 1080p resolution (1080 x 1920 pixels) and is selling in two versions. You can either pick it up with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage or 3GB of RAM and 32GB of space.
Xiaomi also throws in a 13MP/5MP camera setup and the USB Type-C standard. With these specs, the Mi4c is quite a bargain.
Google Nexus 5X
Google recently unveiled the LG-made Nexus 5X, which is the first smartphone to ship with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, and this might be reason enough to be interested in the phone.
The device boasts a 5.2-inch display with 1080p resolution (1080 x 1920 pixels) and bundles “just” 2GB of RAM. It also has a 12.4MP rear camera with laser autofocus and 4K video recording, LTE, fingerprint scanner and a USB Type-C.
Interestingly enough, for the more premium Huawei Nexus 6P, Google agreed to use the services of the Snapdragon 810.