Qualcomm CEO Expresses Confidence in Snapdragon X85 5G's Design, Predicts Inferior Apple C1 Modem Performance

[T0@st]

On Monday (March 3), Qualcomm introduced its Dragonwing FWA Gen 4 Elite model—advertised as the world's first 5G Advanced-capable FWA platform. Inevitably, the company's brand-new Snapdragon X85 5G modem will be compared to a rival design—Apple's proprietary C1 chip launched last month; as featured in the A18 SoC-powered iPhone 16e series. The two companies were closely intertwined for a number of years; with a longer than anticipated co-development of 5G solutions for multiple iPhone product generations. Cristiano Amon—the CEO of Qualcomm—believes that his team's X85 5G design will end up as the victor, when pitched against Apple's C1. In a CNBC-conducted interview, he boasted: "it's the first modem that has so much AI, it actually increases the range of performance of the modem—so the modem can deal with weaker signals. What that will do will set a huge delta between the performance of premium Android devices, and iOS devices, when you compare what Qualcomm can do versus what Apple is doing."

Smartphone industry watchdogs reckon that Apple's C1 model will leverage superior power efficiency; courtesy of the contained modem and receiver being based on TSMC 4 nm and 7 nm processes (respectively). Qualcomm has not revealed the fundamental aspects of its new Snapdragon X85, so it is difficult to project its power consumption habits. Official press material concentrates on two big selling points: downlink speeds up to 12.5 Gbps, and 40 TOPS of NPU processing power. Insiders have posited that the in-house designed C1 modem will make its way into next-gen iPads and Apple wearables—additionally, the development of a successor is rumored. Despite doing less business with Apple, Amon thinks that the future is peachy: "if modem is relevant there's always a place for Qualcomm technology. In the age of AI, modems are going to be more important than they have ever been. And I think that's going to drive consumer preference about do they want the best possible modem in the computer that's in their hand all the time." Qualcomm's chief expects that the supply of Snapdragon 5G Modem‑RF Systems—to Apple—will end in 2027.



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[Darmok N Jalad]

“So much AI in them.” As apposed to a normal amounts of AI, which is equally unquantifiable.

It reminds of the 90s, when “Extreme” was used to market darn near everything, from Doritos to Pentiums.

 

[bonehead123]

It reminds of the 90s, when “Extreme” was used to market darn near everything, from Doritos to Pentiums.

Similar to the '00's levels of "Uber, Mega, and Ultra", hahahaha

 

[Dr. Dro]

What Cristiano forgot is that... Qualcomm's modem technology is utterly irrelevant if you're not in a major US city. There's no high-bandwidth mmWave coverage available anywhere else on Earth. Not even in Europe or Japan.

I personally don't even consider 5G support as a pro or con when I'm buying a phone, despite being literally in the greater São Paulo area, one of the most populous regions in the world, "5G" networks here are in reality simply Advanced LTE networks that often fail to reach 100 Mbps downstream, the speeds are nowhere near the multi-gigabit range of what you'll get near mmWave towers, not to mention the data caps on all three major carriers in the country (Vivo, Claro and TIM) are hilariously low (Claro still sells 300 MB "monthly" data packages), and I have often found that 4G/LTE as it is tends to be unavailable in many areas, I personally stick to 3G most of the time. There are certain areas where it'll even fallback to 2G GPRS networks, at a data rate that is all but usable nowadays.

If Apple's C1 modem wins power consumption, then it has won the race by default.

 

[wNotyarD]

What Cristiano forgot is that... Qualcomm's modem technology is utterly irrelevant if you're not in a major US city. There's no high-bandwidth mmWave coverage available anywhere else on Earth. Not even in Europe or Japan.

I personally don't even consider 5G support as a pro or con when I'm buying a phone, despite being literally in the greater São Paulo area, one of the most populous regions in the world, "5G" networks here are in reality simply Advanced LTE networks that often fail to reach 100 Mbps downstream, the speeds are nowhere near the multi-gigabit range of what you'll get near mmWave towers, not to mention the data caps on all three major carriers in the country (Vivo, Claro and TIM) are hilariously low (Claro still sells 300 MB "monthly" data packages), and I have often found that 4G/LTE as it is tends to be unavailable in many areas, I personally stick to 3G most of the time. There are certain areas where it'll even fallback to 2G GPRS networks, at a data rate that is all but usable nowadays.

If Apple's C1 modem wins power consumption, then it has won the race by default.

I definitely can't say about multigig, but failing 100Mbps? Best I got with my S23U was precisely 1Gbps down with 100Mbps up, standing by the foot of a new tower in Araucária.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I definitely can't say about multigig, but failing 100Mbps? Best I got with my S23U was precisely 1Gbps down with 100Mbps up, standing by the foot of a new tower in Araucária.

I don't have the latest generation phone, far from it, but I do have a number with all 3 carriers registered in eSIMs on the same phone, and I've run tests just for you:

Vivo Easy Super

Claro Flex

TIM Controle L Express 7.0

Worth remembering, signal is better at night. No sun spots and a lot less people using the networks.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

143Mbps here, and that doesn’t mean much to me on a phone. Sometimes it’s closer to 400, I believe. That would be nice if I had 5G home internet, but Google Fiber has been good to me so far. The only thing that really matters on my phone is having an actual connection, and speeds around 20Mbps are sufficient for phone work. It’s not like I’m downloading 100GB games or anything!