Motorola has dibs on the new Snapdragon 870 chipset (Updated)

Credit: Qualcomm

• Qualcomm has recently announced the Snapdragon 870 chipset.
• Motorola has now confirmed the Edge S will offer the SoC.
• The phone will debut on January 26, 2021.

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Update: January 20, 2021 (12:10 AM ET): Motorola has now confirmed in a Weibo post that the newly announced Snapdragon 870 chipset will make its first appearance on the Motorola Edge S. The chip is effectively an upgraded Snapdragon 865 Plus with a 100MHz buff to its already lofty Prime CPU clock speed. This should give the Edge S some 3.2GHz to play around with.

Credit: Motorola / Weibo

The phone is confirmed to launch on January 26, 2021, so expect more info beyond its silicon to be revealed shortly.

Original article: January 13, 2021 (7:07 AM ET): We heard murmurings last year that a Snapdragon 800 Lite processor was in the works, but Qualcomm only announced the Snapdragon 888. Now, a prominent leaker has suggested that another Snapdragon 800 series chip is indeed coming.

Weibo tipster Digital Chat Station reported that “a new 8-series flagship chip” is in the works, although the leaker didn’t divulge any details regarding the chipset’s specs or availability.

Credit: Digital Chat Station/Weibo

Nevertheless, Motorola recently confirmed on Weibo that the Motorola Edge S is in the pipeline, and the aforementioned tipster reports that the phone will be first to offer the new processor.

It’s far too early for Qualcomm to reveal a Snapdragon 888 Plus processor, as it usually tends to offer this option in the middle or second half of the year. We heard rumors last year that Qualcomm was working on a Lite version of its 2021 flagship processor though. So we’re guessing that a new Snapdragon 800 series chip at this stage would land below the Snapdragon 888 in terms of capabilities.

More reading: Why a Snapdragon 800 Lite makes sense

We previously outlined several reasons to look forward to a Snapdragon 888 Lite processor, and one of the biggest reasons might just be pricing. A Lite chipset could potentially shave a few dollars off a smartphone’s total bill of materials, theoretically allowing brands to pass the savings on to consumers. A Lite chip could also bridge a gap between the Snapdragon 800 series and the Snapdragon 700 family, serving up a better GPU and other features.

There’s no word on a launch date for the Motorola Edge S, but if a new Snapdragon 800-series chipset is coming and Motorola does have first dibs on it, we should hear more at the launch event.