Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Features: Snapdragon 821, Expected To Power Upcoming Phablet, Announced; New Storage Format Likely

Samsung Galaxy Note 7, which is probably a few weeks away to be unveiled, is widely expected to feature the company’s own Exynos 8893 processor in developing markets and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 processor in bigger markets like the U.S. While there have not been any official words from the South Korean conglomerate about Galaxy Note 7’s hardware specifications, Qualcomm introduced the new Snapdragon 821 on Monday, without naming any future device that would incorporate the processor.

The new Snapdragon 821, which is an upgraded version of the Snapdragon 820 found inside some variants of the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge, is said to deliver a 10 percent performance increase over the 820. With the Qualcomm Kryo quad-core CPU, the Snapdragon 821 is expected to reach speeds up to 2.4 GHz.

Qualcomm said that Snapdragon 821 “will help set a new bar for smartphones, tablets, mobile VR head mounted displays and other new devices.” The company did not say which devices would be powered by the new 821, but it mentioned that consumers can expect commercial devices powered by the 821 in the second half of 2016.

According to recent reports, Samsung is likely to unveil the Galaxy Note 7 on Aug. 2 in New York. If this rumor turns out to be true, then the speculated availability of the device perfectly fits into the Snapdragon 821 time line provided by Qualcomm, SamMobile reported.

When it comes to other features likely to be included in the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung’s newly released mobile storage format based on UFS 1.0 has something to offer. The new UFS cards are said to provide read and write speeds that are five times better than microSD cards. However, they are not compatible with the existing microSD card sockets, suggesting that the new Galaxy Note 7 might sport a hybrid UFS/microSD card slot.

Rumors have it that Samsung’s next phablet will feature a 5.7-inch, dual edge Super AMOLED display, with a Quad HD resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels). The device could also come with 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 64GB/128GB/256GB of storage, a USB Type-C port, an iris scanner, a 3,600mAh battery and an upgraded S-Pen with improved Bluetooth LE hardware.