Here’s what a 2026 phone needs to earn flagship status, according to Qualcomm

As rarified smartphones go, this Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 reference handset is weapons-grade unobtanium. It’s Qualcomm’s way of showing off the muscle of its new 2026 chipset, and a clue what to expect from big-name brands like Samsung, Xiaomi and OnePlus when they eventually unveil their next-gen flagship phones.

Based on my short time putting it through a gauntlet of tests at the firm’s Snapdragon Summit, it breaks new performance ground across the board – although that’s no surprise, based on the spec sheet.

Naturally there’s a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 running the show, with two Prime cores peaking at a breakneck 4.6GHz and six Performance cores maxing out at 3.62GHz. The outgoing Snapdragon 8 Elite managed 4.32GHz and 3.53GHz respectively; MediaTek’s upcoming Dimensity 9500 rival falls short at 4.21GHz.

The bigger surprise was the colossal 24GB of LPDDR5X memory. That’s double what you’ll find in any of Google or Samsung’s current flagship phones. A few Chinese brands have made this the norm for their 2025 high-end handsets, including Realme, Redmi and OnePlus, but they’re in the minority. I don’t think that’ll change this year – but as AI-infused apps become the norm, more RAM is definitely going to become the standard.

A quick look at some synthetic benchmark apps show how far the new silicon has come in 2D tests – and how it stacks up against rivals:

2D benchmarks	Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 reference handset	Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (SD 8 Elite)	Google Pixel 10 Pro XL (tensor G5)	Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max (A19 Pro)
Geekbench 6 single-core	3823	2858	2296	3822
Geekbench 6 multi-core	12218	9470	6203	9713
Antutu	4,509,131	2,265,528	1,508,196	2,579,066

Gaming has also seen a performance hike, based on the 3D benchmarks I was able to run during my demo session. I had fewer direct comparisons available at the time of writing, but the signs are pointing to frame rate hikes in most titles.

3D benchmarks	Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 reference handset	Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (SD 8 Elite)
GFXbench	3606	1696
3Dmark Wildlife Extreme	7754	6919
3Dmark Solar Bay	12,485	11,140

Elsewhere the reference handset is packing a generous 1TB of speedy UFS4.1 storage. A 6.8in, 3200×1440 resolution AMOLED screen with 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate is already the flagship phone standard, and ensures the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is being pushed to its limits in games.

The 4300mAh battery is definitely on the small side, though – I’m wondering if that has given Qualcomm’s engineers more room inside to add cooling. It definitely got toasty after a series of benchmark runs during my demo. 2026 is when I’d expect silicon-carbide batteries to become the norm, with 5500mAh and above from the Chinese brands.

The reference phone might be packing three rear cameras, but Qualcomm hasn’t gone crazy on the sensors. There’s what appears to be a fixed-lens telephoto rather than a periscope zoom, and everything is contained in a fairly shallow island – a far cry from the huge bulges seen on 2025’s top-tier cameraphones. The chipset is perfectly capable of handling high pixel counts with zero shutter lag, 8K HDR video recording and 480fps slow motion at Full HD.

Of course Qualcomm has adopted Android 16 – the latest version of Google’s operating system will be the norm for pretty much every handset with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 inside.

You won’t actually be able to buy one of these phones – and there’s no indication of what similar hardware will set you back from the likes of Samsung et al. Expect the first to be revealed within the next few days.

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Thanks to Snapdragon for inviting me to be their guest at Snapdragon Summit. All experiences were hosted but no additional compensation was received.