Qualcomm announces Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders with Snapdragon 888 and 6.78-inch 144Hz AMOLED screen

Qualcomm has more than 1.6 million ‘Snapdragon Insiders’, a community of fans and enthusiasts who participate in online forums and are among the first to hear about news coming from Qualcomm. To cater to these power users, Qualcomm has partnered with Asus to deliver a unique smartphone.

Qualcomm announces the “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders” and yes, that’s the official name.

To those who can afford the curated offering of $1,500, the package includes the handset, along with a pair of TWS earbuds with Snapdragon Sound produced by Master & Dynamic, a bumper case, a Qualcomm Quick Charge 5.0 power adapter, and two charging cables.

Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders package contents

There’s a lot to cover about this device so let’s start with the hardware. On the front is large 6.78-inch Samsung AMOLED screen with 2448 x 1080 px resolution and the panel supports fast 144Hz refresh rate. The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus and supports Always-on display.

There’s a 24MP front-facing camera in the top bezel of the phone. This puts it among the few premium smartphones without a punch hole or a notch these days, alongside the likes of Sony Xperia 1 III and 5 III.

Around back is a triple camera setup, fingerprint scanner, and a self-illuminating Snapdragon logo. There's a main 64MP f/1.8 camera, an ultrawide 12MP f/2.2 unit and a telephoto 8MP snapper with 3X zoom. The camera app will feature Qualcomm AI software experiences like auto zoom and AI object tracking. We expect to see more of Qualcomm’s camera features here, but the actual tuning of the cameras is done by Asus.

The fingerprint scanner uses Qualcomm’s 2nd generation 3D Sonic Sensor, just like the Galaxy S21 series. The difference here, however, is that the fingerprint scanner is not in-display and Qualcomm explains this due to its incompatibility with the rigid OLED panel that the Smartphone is equipped with.

The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 888 chipset (non-Plus). There’s also 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. The Smartphone will come with stock Android 11 out of the box. Qualcomm hasn’t commented on the specific build of Android. We know it won’t have any bloatware and it will be near stock, but we’re not sure where the Qualcomm features will be configurable from.

There’s a 4,000 mAh battery, compatible with Qualcomm’s included Quick Charge 5.0 charger. The phone is capable of a 70% charge in 30 minutes, or a full charge in 50 minutes. The phone weighs in at 210g.

The “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders” is meant to showcase all of Qualcomm’s software features that integrate with Qualcomm hardware. The Smartphone will be manufactured, marketed, and sold by Asus and will be available sometime in August in China, US, Germany, UK, Japan, South Korea, and eventually India.