Daily Authority: 🐉 Two 'Snap'dragons battle it out

🥑 Rise and shine, dear readers. It’s time for your daily dose of tech news and then some. Today is launch day in the tech world, so we at Android Authority are currently scurrying to get you all the info about Samsung’s new foldable phones as soon as they go official. Want to know more? We’ve added recap links in the news roundup below. But before that, let’s look at how the chip inside these upcoming phones — the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 — performs compared to its older sibling.

Should you buy a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 phone?

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is the latest premium system on a chip that powers flagship smartphones like the OnePlus 10 Pro, the ASUS Zenfone 9, ROG Phone 6, and soon the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4. The processor succeeds the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC that runs flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S22 series. Do you really need the upgrade, though? Let’s dig deeper.

• The older Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip was made by Samsung, but Qualcomm switched vendors mid-way and gave rival TSMC the contract to manufacture the Plus variant of the chip.
• It looks like Qualcomm wasn’t happy with the state of its Samsung-made chip.
• We haven’t been either. We’ve seen Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phones hand in benchmark scores closer to last year’s Snapdragon 888.
• These phones struggled with excess heat and sustained performance under more rigorous testing.
• Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 handsets promise improvements in both these areas, complete with 10% clock speed improvements and up to 30% efficiency gains.
• What does all this really translate to?

Performance

• We’ve tested several Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 phones, and you know what we found? A top-tier chip.
• Really, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is what the regular 8 Gen 1 should have been.
• The newer chip offers sustained gaming performance, meaning you can game for longer without running into issues.
• 8 Plus Gen 1 phones top our benchmarks, but mostly with performance modes enabled.
• Without the performance modes, the performance results in our testing were still conservative. That’s probably because of optimizations for longer battery life.
• The phones we’ve tested are still keeping this maximum performance in check unless specifically requested.
• It seems phone manufacturers don’t want the 8 Plus Gen 1 chip to reach its maximum potential to preserve battery life.
• That said, we found that handsets with the latest chip can run at higher performance levels for longer than the original variant.

The conclusion

• Our reviewer extraordinaire Robert Triggs did a bunch of testing on the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.
• If you want to see all the cool performance graphs, you can head to the 8 Plus Gen 1 vs 8 Gen 1  article here.
• All that testing later, Robert notes that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 is a notably superior chip compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
• The touted efficiency gains from moving over to TSMC’s 4nm process have freed the chip to finally run at its full potential.
• That doesn’t mean that phones with the regular chip are bad. They are more than capable of handling everyday tasks.
• However, the 8 Plus Gen 1 is simply better if you want sustainable performance, better battery life, and a cooler handset.

Roundup

📖 As promised, here’s a recap of everything we know about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 (Android Authority).

👀 If you’re eager to watch the Samsung Unpacked event, you can stream it here (Samsung YouTube).

📱 Speaking of foldable phones, even Xiaomi is launching one tomorrow (Android Authority).

🖼️ The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are getting a cool photo edition tool (Android Authority).

🎨 And while we’re on Pixel news, here are some new Pixel wallpapers for you to download (Android Authority).

1️⃣ Switching gears to Android 13, did you try out the new open beta of OnePlus’ Oxygen OS 13? (Android Authority).

📺 Now for some good news — 50 free TV channels may be coming to Google TV. You won’t need to subscribe, download, or sign-up (9to5Google).

🖐 Dozens of Whole Foods stores will soon let you pay with just a scan of your palm (The Verge).

😠 Facebook helps cops prosecute 17-year-old for abortion (TechCrunch).

🍏 Google directly attacks Apple again over ‘green bubble’ nonsense (Android Authority).

⌚ Garmin adds another bright spot to its line of multisport watches (Android Authority).

📀 Walmart held talks on stream deals with Disney, Comcast, and Paramount (The New York Times).

💬 WhatsApp is adding some long-requested privacy features, including the ability to block screenshots (Android Authority).

🏘️ Mark Cuban says buying virtual real estate is “the dumbest s— ever” (Business Insider).

Wednesday Weirdness

Trust Meta (formerly Facebook) to make the internet weirder by the day. Its new chatbot, Blender Bot 3, was released last week and has already become racist. Not only that, but it’s also spreading fake news and saying bad things about Mark Zuckerberg, the guy who made the company that made the bot. 😂

• Blender Bot 3 can search the internet and talk to people on any subject.
• The conversational AI system is designed to learn how to improve its skills and safety through natural conversations and feedback from people.
• Unfortunately for Meta, the bot became evil and called Mark Zuckerberg “too creepy and manipulative.”
• It even spread some anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and said that Donald Trump is currently the President of the United States.
• In fact, it told a Wall Street Journal reporter that Trump “will always be” President.”
• Meta said it was painful to see such offensive responses and will use the bot’s public interactions to make it better.

That’s all, folks.

Have a great day,

Adamya Sharma, Editor.