This Snapdragon leak reveals why your next Ultra phone might be even pricier

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 series remains the SoC lineup of choice for several top-tier Android flagships. Last year, Qualcomm branched out the 8 series into the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, both based on TSMC’s 3nm process. It seems Qualcomm could further spice up its lineup with a “Pro” variation, and Android brands might consequently face difficult decisions for their Ultra flagships.

Leaker Digital Chat Station has shared some more specifications for Qualcomm’s next-generation flagship chips.

According to the leaker, Qualcomm’s next-generation flagship lineup will have two chips: the SM8975 and the SM8950. Both SoCs are said to be using TSMC’s 2nm process.

The leaker says that the SM8975 is the only SoC in the pair that supports LPDDR6, a “full-fledged GPU,” and a full cache. However, these specifications come at a cost, as the SM8975 is also said to be “extremely expensive.” The leaker mentions they’ve encountered “mid-range” models (likely referring to Android flagships in their “Pro” avatar rather than their “Ultra” variant), which opt for the SM8950 instead, and there’s a slight chance these may even switch to the SM8850 (current-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5).

In a previous leak, Digital Chat Station mentioned that the SoCs will sport a 2+3+3 configuration.

The SM8975 is said to be the “Pro” variation of Qualcomm’s flagship chip. Presumably, it could be called the “Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro” if Qualcomm follows its current naming conventions (which it routinely throws out the window, so the SoC could be called anything, for that matter). On the other hand, the SM8950 could be the more familiarly-named Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. So far, I have not found any leaks for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 6 (non-Elite variant) — it remains to be seen whether this SoC exists.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro being even more expensive is bad news

If the SM8975 indeed turns out to be “extremely expensive,” it would lead to an even higher price for Ultra flagships than we are used to in the current generation.

The very nature of Ultra flagships gives them price elasticity, as users who want the absolute best hardware are usually willing to pay more. But this price elasticity likely has limits, and it remains to be seen at what price point demand shrinks and eventually dries up, making Ultra flagships impractical to produce and sell in economical quantities. The leak already suggests that non-Ultra flagships would stick to the SM8950, likely to keep prices in check.

Complicating the price situation is the SM8975’s LPDDR6 support. While this would generally be great news, the ongoing RAM crisis has made LPDDR6 RAM even more expensive than ever before. If an Ultra flagship does adopt SM8975, the Android brand will then have to choose between LPDDR6 and dropping down to LPDDR5 or LPDDR5X to keep prices in check (presuming the SoC retains support, which, given the RAM crisis, makes sense). A combination of SM8975 with LPDDR6 would mean an absolutely inflated price tag for any Ultra flagship, and that’s not great news for Android fans.

We’ll have to wait many more months before Qualcomm reveals any official information about its next-generation flagship SoCs. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for sane price tags and naming schemes, but I’m not holding my breath for either.