Rumors that the Snapdragon 810 overheats are rubbish, says Qualcomm

We’ve certainly heard a lot about Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 810 chip over the past few months. From early reports claiming that the SoC has some overheating issues to a big device manufacturer deciding to pass on the chip, there have been many rumors regarding whether or not the Snapdragon 810 overheats or not. So to lay those rumors to rest, Qualcomm’s Vice President of marketing Tim McDonough spoke out to Forbes, outlining the reasons these reports are false.

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According to McDonough, the rumors surrounding the 810’s overheating issues are “rubbish”, and that there are no problems with overheating on commercial devices. But while the HTC One M9 did in fact end up getting a little warm to the touch in our full review (every metal HTCOne device we’ve reviewed has gotten a little warm), McDonough explains that this is because the processors in review units weren’t final, commercial versions of the chipset.

McDonough goes on to say:

…we all build pre-released products to find bugs and do performance optimization. So when pre-released hardware doesn’t act like commercial hardware, it’s just part of the development process. I think someone very artfully took that and used it to fuel the rumours and took something that’s completely normal and sent it to some less sophisticated news outlets to give them a story.

No matter what side you’re on, there’s no doubting that this has truth to it. About a week after we first told you about the HTCOne M9 overheating report, Tweakers, the Dutch website who initiated the overheating claims, updated their findings after the One M9 received a big software update. Once the software was updated to a more final version, the same benchmark tests were performed on the One M9, warranting no overheating issues. 

After denying the claims, McDonough posed the question, “Who stands to gain from this rumor?” Forbes notes that the obvious answer to the question is Samsung. There’s not doubt that the timing of this rumor lining up perfectly with the launch of Samsung’s Exynos 7420 processor is coincidental, and that a damaging rumor to one of Samsung’s biggest competitors could be detrimental. 

Circling back to LG’s previous claims that the Snapdragon 808 processor was chosen for the LG G4 almost a year in advance, McDonough relays the same message:

These decisions get made 18 months before a phone shows its face. When we were working with LG on the G flex 2 and G4, Qualcomm produced the 810 and 808 around the same time. The simple reason is the design goals of the G4 2k experience.

With all of this said, unfortunately Qualcomm may have been too late to publish a big denial on these claims. Just last week we reported that the company is beginning to scale back its outlook for the rest of 2015 due to losing business with one of its biggest customers. Samsung passing on the 810 with the Galaxy S6 was particularly damaging to Qualcomm’s marketshare over the past few months, so perhaps it would be a good idea for Qualcomm to put its best foot forward and focus on what’s coming in the future.

If you’re interested in checking out the full interview, head to the source link below.