Qualcomm has announced its Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 processor, designed for mid-to-lower-range Android phones.
Expect it in some future handsets from later in 2025, bringing a 27% CPU boost, 30% faster graphics, and a massive 65% NPU improvement over its Gen 3 predecessor.
Much as we all love the best Android phones, those flagships handsets – such as the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra – can cost a pretty penny.
Fortunately, there are plenty of decent affordable Android devices too. And chip-maker Qualcomm has a major hand in that – by providing the behind-the-scenes hardware to deliver solid performance.
Well, 2025 is about to see a further boost to the best budget Android phones, thanks to the reveal of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chip. It brings big upgrades to compute, graphics and AI enhancing abilities, meaning phones that don't cost a fortune are about to get even better.
Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 headline figures
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Compared to Gen 3:
- CPU: +27%
- GPU: +30%
- NPU: +65%
The last generation of Snapdragon 7 powered the likes of Motorola's excellent Edge 50 Pro handset, as one example, putting that handset up against the likes of Google's Pixel 9 (with Tensor hardware) – but without as big a price tag.
That kind of release cycle looks set to continue later in the year, as Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 improves over its predecessor by significant margins. The biggest leap of all, however, is with the neural processing unit (NPU), which is said to be up to 65% more performant.
Why does that matter? Artificial intelligence (AI), of course! With AI prevelant in our daily operations even more than we might realise, being able to utilise its power for image generation, summaries, editing and more is key to the devices in our hands – and this new chip promises to make that experience even better.
There are no specific announcements as to which Android devices will feature Qualcomm's new hardware at this stage, however, but I'm sure it won't be long at al before new models are being revealed to the market.
Qualcomm's next flagship endeavour, however, is expected to be revealed in the fourth quarter of this year, or just prior, with Snapdragon Elite 2 – its rumoured name – thought to be leading the way in China-release handsets before the year is out.
