Phones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (SM8450) are barely out the door and talk has already started of phones with an even faster chipset – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ (SM8475). Acclaimed leakster Evan Blass details the Lenovo “Halo”, which might be one of the first devices to use the new chip.
We heard rumors that Qualcomm is planning to shift part of
the 8 Gen 1 production to TSMC, a mid-season upgrade to the current chip.
Seeing how the Dimensity 9000 beat the Snapdragon and the Exynos 2200 at
Geekbench, despite using the same CPU hardware, holds promise of a performance
boost over early 2022 flagships.
Note that the “Halo” is not the successor to the Legion Duel
2 (that one is code named “Diablo”). It still has all the makings of a gaming
phone, though. Besides the extra powerful chipset, it will have a speedy
display, a large, fast-charging battery and not much in the camera department.
The 6.67” 1080p+ display allegedly uses a P-OLED panel (i.e.
coming from LG) with 144 Hz refresh rate and 300 Hz touch sampling rate. Notice
the punch hole selfie camera (with a 16 MP sensor) – that means to side pop-up
camera like on the Legions, which suggests this may be marketed as a general
flagship instead of a gaming phone.
Anyway, the Lenovo “Halo” will have a 50 MP main camera on
the back, 13 MP ultra wide and a 2 MP helped. The Legion Duel 2 and 2 Pro have
a 64 MP main camera (with a large 1/1.32” sensor) and a 16 MP ultra wide, so
the “Halo” will hardly be a camera-centric phone. But, again, the conservative
design suggests this isn't a gaming phone.
It will measure under 8 mm thick with a 5,000 mAh battery
inside (for comparison, the Duel 2 Pro and 2 Pro measure 9.9 mm thick with a
5,500 mAh battery). Charging power is listed as 68W, though that may vary
between the Chinese and global versions.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ chip will be paired with 8/12/16 GB
of DDR5 RAM and 128/256 GB of UFS 3.1 storage (it will be surprising if there
isn’t a 512 GB option). The price of the Lenovo “Halo” is anyone’s guess at the
moment as the phone will not be unveiled until Q3 – that’s half a year away.
