We had quite the busy week in tech! Summer is truly over, bring on the tech announcements! MediaTek and Qualcomm both unveiled their next-gen mobile chipsets this week – the Dimensity 9500 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The Snapdragon brings a 20% improvement in CPU performance with a 35% improvement in efficiency. On the GPU side, expect 23% improved performance, 20% better power efficiency, and 25% improved Ray Tracing. The chipset has a 37% faster Hexagon NPU and upgraded Qualcomm Sensing Hub, which together unlock agentic AI assistants for personalized experiences.
We’re already seeing phones powered by the new Qualcomm SoC, both announced and upcoming – the Xiaomi 17 series, Honor’s Magic8 series, Realme’s GT 8 Pro, etc.
The Dimensity 9500 uses new generation Arm CPU cores with an ‘All Big Core’ design. It uses a single Arm C1-Ultra core clocked at 4.21GHz, three C1-Premium cores, and four C1-Pro cores for an octa-core design. Let’s talk numbers – single-core performance is up by 32%, multi-core is 17% better. The ultra core is impressively 55% more efficient at peak performance, while CPU efficiency is 30% better than on the Dimensity 9400.
Graphics are 33% faster and 42% more efficient. The ninth-generation NPU 990 with Generative AI Engine 2.0 is 33% faster.
The upcoming Oppo Find X9 Pro and vivo X300 will adopt the Dimensity 9500 later this year.
It is touted as the “world’s fastest mobile system-on-a-chip” by Qualcomm.
Expect to see on Oppo and Vivo flagships at the end of the year.
Xiaomi unveiled three phones in the 17 series, and two more under the 15T moniker. That’s not counting the Xiaomi Pad 8, Pad 8 Pro, and Pad Mini. All three Xiaomi 17 units use the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip.
The Xiaomi 17 has a 6.3-inch 120Hz LTPO AMOLED display, a triple camera – 23mm f/1.7, 60mm f/2.0, and 17mm f/2.4 – and a 7,000mAh battery with 100W charging. Both the Xiaomi 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max have a secondary 120Hz LTPO AMOLED display on the back, embedded into their respective camera islands. The 17 Pro features a 6.3-inch display up front and a 2.7-inch secondary display at the back. Its triple camera system is a 23mm f/1.7, a 115mm f/3.0 telephoto, and a 17mm f/2.4 ultrawide. The Pro has a 6,300mAh battery. The 17 Pro Max has the same camera system, but a bigger 6.9-inch main display, a bigger 2.9-inch rear display, and the biggest battery at 7,500mAh.
All three flagship phones will launch in China first and are already available. Moving on to the Xiaomi 15T and 15T Pro. Billed as flagship killer phones, both T series devices have 6.83-inch AMOLED displays – the vanilla a 120Hz unit, the Pro a 144Hz one. The 15T has a Dimensity 8400 Ultra chip, while the Pro has a Dimensity 9400+ one. Both phones have a 5,500mAh battery, but while the non-Pro charges only through a cable at 67W, the Pro adds 90W wired and 50W wireless options.
Finally, the 15T has a triple camera with a 50MP 23mm wide-angle, a 50MP 46mm zoom, and a 12MP 15mm ultrawide. The 15T Pro packs a larger sensor 50MP 23mm wide camera, a 50MP 115mm zoom camera, and the same ultrawide.
The rear is home to 2.7″ and 2.9″ secondary screens, respectively, and triple 50MP cameras – including 5x periscopes.
It also brings four 50MP cameras, up to 16GB RAM and 100W charging.
The 14T duo from last year had 6.67″ displays and 5,000mAh batteries. The new models upgrade that to 5,500mAh. There are other improvements too.
Vivo’s X300 series is coming on October 13 in China. There will be two phones – the X300 and X300 Pro, both running the new Dimensity 9500. Both phones will use vivo’s latest Android 16-based OriginOS 6, which is coming on October 10. The X300 Pro will have a 24mm f/1.6 main camera, and what appears to be the same 85mm f/2.7 zoom camera as the X200 Pro (and not the 85mm f/2.3 unit of the X200 Ultra).
The Oppo Find X9 series, featuring the Find X9 and Find X9 Pro, is coming on October 16 with ColorOS 16 and the new Dimensity 9500 SoC. Expect huge batteries and potent camera hardware. But more importantly, the series will launch globally, as confirmed by Oppo CPO Pete Lau!
vivo will also unveil a new tablet, a pair of TWS earphones, and a smartwatch alongside the X300 series.
The photos were shot at the Changchun Air Show.
The Find X9 Pro will house a large 7,500 mAh battery.
The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max in Deep Blue and Cosmic Orange are most prone.
It fared much better than the Pro models.
