It’s official. The Poco F6 will be India’s first smartphone with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor. Qualcomm held an India-specific event today to officially launch the new chip in the presence of noted dignitaries including Poco India head Himanshu Tandon. As if like clockwork, Poco subsequently made the announcement through its social media channels.
The Poco F6 isn’t the first smartphone to be powered by the new Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. Xiaomi’s Civi 4 Pro holds that crown but then it’s also exclusive to China. The Poco F6 is launching globally so technically, this is the smartphone that will bring the new chip to more people around the world at the same time.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 — processor details
The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is a 4nm chip from Qualcomm that tries to saddle many premium features akin to the top-tier Snapdragon 8-series chips like say the 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 3 at a more affordable price. You can think of it as a chip for “flagship killer” smartphones.
The 8-core chip has a Cortex-X4 prime core clocked at 3.0GHz, four “big” performance cores at 2.8GHz, and three “small/little” efficiency cores at 2.0GHz, with support for up to 24GB of LPDDR5x RAM and UFS 4.0 storage, alongside USB 3.1 Gen 2 connectivity through USB-C.
Despite being slightly slower than the 8 Gen 3 in certain tasks, the 8s Gen 3 distinguishes itself with on-device AI support, capable of powering models with up to 10 billion parametres like Llama 2, Baichuan-7B, and Gemini Nano. It would be interesting to see if Poco makes a big fuss about AI with the Poco F6 launch.
Poco beats OnePlus
Ahead of the Poco F6 launch—which is scheduled for May 23—Poco has announced that it recorded a year-on-year growth of 72.2 percent in the first quarter of 2024. Citing a report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), Poco said it beat OnePlus to become India’s No.6 brand amongst the top Android OEMs. Its market share during the period was reportedly 5.9 percent.
“Poco’s remarkable progress is a clear reflection of our unwavering dedication to innovation and our deep understanding of our consumers’ needs,” Himanshu Tandon, India head at Poco said in a prepared statement. “As we move forward, we are more determined than ever to maintain this momentum and set new benchmarks in the industry. We believe that 2024 holds great promise for us,” he added.
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