Qualcomm Partners Up With ASUS To Build Phone For Snapdragon Insiders

Qualcomm has announced its first smartphone today as a special device for members of its Snapdragon Insiders program. The chipmaker collaborated with ASUS to design and make the phone and it comes with all the latest high-end specs that the chipmaker has to offer.

The company’s first phone is meant to be a showcase for the latest bleeding-edge Qualcomm tech for its loyal followers on the Snapdragon Insiders community. Qualcomm launched the social media platform in March 2021 and they claim to now have 1.6 million members, which is considered a niche group of enthusiasts compared to the social media followings of giant smartphone brands such as Apple and Samsung, who respectively have 6.4 million and 12.2 million followers on Twitter.

Moving on, the phone itself has an always-on 6.78-inch Samsung AMOLED Full HD+ display with a 144Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time. It is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, has a Delta-E level of less than 1, and a peak brightness of 1200 nits (800 nits outdoor-readable brightness) with HDR10 and HDR10+ certification. As an extra added aesthetic bonus, the Snapdragon fireball logo can illuminate itself.

As for the cameras, the phone has a 24MP selfie shooter and three cameras in the back: a 64MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide, and an 8MP telephoto with a 3x optical zoom, and has OIS and on-chip-lens PDAF.

Under the hood, the phone is powered by the Snapdragon 888 – not the latest 888+, sadly – 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Additionally, the chip comes with support for mmWave 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and Qualcomm’s proprietary Snapdragon Sound technology. It unlocks with Qualcomm’s second-gen 3D Sonic fingerprint sensor which is placed at the back instead of an in-display sensor.

Shipping with stock Android 11, the phone with dual stereo speakers has a 4000 mAh battery and 65W fast charging using the included Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 charging adapter. Aside from a rubber bumper and braided cables, the phone also includes the Master & Dynamic MW08SI wireless ANC earbuds. As you can imagine, all this swag doesn’t come cheap and will cost Insiders a whopping US$1499 (~RM6283), with shipping expected to start in August.

On Twitter, Qualcomm revealed that the Snapdragon Insiders Phone will get four years of security updates. XDA also revealed that ASUS not only designed the phone, but will also be handling the manufacturing of the device as well as be in charge of sales, distribution, and software support. Qualcomm said the phone will be available in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, South Korea, China, and India.