Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform during its annual Snapdragon Summit last month, and brands including Xiaomi, OnePlus, Realme, and Asus released phones with the new processor inside, following the chipmaker's announcement. It is built on TSMC's 3nm process technology and is claimed to offer 44 percent improved power efficiency compared with its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. Now, early tests with two of the first devices using the chip have revealed some significant battery life improvements.
YouTuber Dave2D posted a video offering insights about the battery life and performance of Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro and OnePlus 13. Both models run on the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip are compared with their predecessors in the video. The Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro and OnePlus 13 have a 5,800mAh and 6,000mAh battery, respectively, while their predecessors were equipped with 5,500mAh (ROG Phone 8) and 5,400mAh (OnePlus 12) batteries.
The video notes that the battery life of the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro surged to 14.29 hours from the 11 hours of the ROG Phone 8 Pro (with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) in the PCMark battery test. Similarly, the OnePlus 13's battery lasted 17.25 hours in the same test, up from 12.13 hours offered by the OnePlus 12 (with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3). The tests indicate significant improvement in battery life over previous generation phones and the YouTuber attributes the advancements to the new Snapdragon chip.
He also ran a few more tests highlighting the performance potential of the new chip. On Genshin Impact, the ROG Phone 9 Pro offered nearly five hours of battery life whereas the predecessor lasted up to 3.42 hours.
Similarly, the OnePlus 13's battery life is impressive at 5.39 hours with Genshin Impact, while the OnePlus 12 lasted only 3.51 hours. In his video, Dave2D says the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC is energy efficient and offers battery longevity alongside battery health.
During the launch event, Qualcomm claimed a 44 percent improvement in power efficiency for the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip over its predecessor. It is also promised to deliver up to 45 percent better CPU performance and up to 40 percent improved GPU performance. The mobile platform has an Oryon CPU with a custom eight-core structure with prime cores clocked at 4.32GHz and performance cores with a peak frequency of 3.53GHz.