PC World - USA (2021-01)

22 PCWorld JANUARY 2021

NEWS INSIDE THE SNAPDRAGON^888

been qualified as the first CAI-compliant

smartphone camera. The Content

Authenticity Initiative (go.pcworld.com/cnai)

and TruePic, plus Adobe, Twitter, and the

New York Times, worry that photos are being

stolen and altered without the photographer’s

consent or knowledge. CAI will allow CAI-

qualified cameras to create a cryptographic

“seal” around an image, Asghar said,

preserving date, time location, pixel count

and the depth map.

The Kryo 680 is 25 percent faster than the

Kryo core within the Snapdragon 865, and 25

percent more power efficient, too.

5G

From a connectivity standpoint, the

Snapdragon 888 is notable for three major

features: integrated 5G,

carrier aggregation, and

Wi-Fi 6E. To date, every

5G modem that

Qualcomm has shipped

alongside the Snapdragon

has been a standalone

device like last year’s X55

modem (go.pcworld.

com/x55m). Now, the

new, third-generation X60

modem has been

integrated with the

Snapdragon 888,

alongside the Qualcomm

FastConnect 6900

engine, which governs its Wi-Fi capabilities.

Qualcomm isn’t disclosing the total power

draw of its Snapdragon 888 yet, but the new

5nm process, plus the modem integration,

typically means lower power consumption and

therefore longer battery life. Available

throughput, however, remains the same as the

X55: a theoretical peak bandwidth of 7.5Gbps

downstream and 3Gbps upstream.

More significantly, Qualcomm’s third-

generation X60 modem offers an olive branch

of sorts between the 5G mmWave and

sub-6GHz technologies. Essentially, mmWave

offers blazing-fast throughput, but clustered

around “hotspots” with ranges limited to

something like yards, rather than miles.

(Qualcomm and Ericsson have showed off

[go.pcworld.com/qler] 5G mmWave-NR

A diagram of the Kryo 680 inside the Snapdragon 888.