Last month witnessed the official unveiling of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chipset. Whenever the company presents a new chipset, it initiates a race among Android manufacturers to be the first to incorporate it into a commercially available handset. This year, American consumers eager to get their hands on the first handset powered by this new chipset have to look towards a less familiar brand. The Chinese manufacturer Nubia has taken the lead by making its handset available for order right now.

Uncover the Power of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite

Nubia Z70 Ultra: The First to Order

As spotted by Android Authority, the Nibia Z70 Ultra stands out as the first device to offer the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. It comes with a 6.85-inch, 2,688 x 1,216 full-screen display featuring a 144Hz refresh rate, accompanied by a 6,150mAh battery with 80w fast charging. The triple camera array includes a 64MP telephoto camera and two 50MP lenses for regular and ultrawide shots. What's particularly appealing for photography enthusiasts is that the 35mm main camera has an "adjustable physical aperture for real-life shots."This phone offers various RAM options, with 12GB, 16GB, or 24GB available, and each upgrade is accompanied by an increase in storage capacity. You can choose from 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage. It's important to note that there's no mention of expandable storage, so this is something to consider if you decide to place an order. Notably, it runs Android 15 out of the box, making it the first phone to do so. While recent Pixel 9 builds may have this version now, they initially came with Android 14.

The Star of the Show: The Snapdragon 8 Elite Processor

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a remarkable 3nm chip with two prime cores running at 4.3GHz and six performance cores. One notable aspect is the absence of efficiency cores this time. Despite this, Qualcomm claims that power efficiency will improve by 44%. All these features add up to a processor that offers a significant performance boost over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Qualcomm suggests that you can expect a 45% improvement in both single and multi-core tasks.We haven't had extensive time with a Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered handset yet, so we can't vouch for all its capabilities. However, we did run our benchmarks on Qualcomm's reference devices, and the results were truly impressive. When comparing it to other leading smartphones:In Geekbench 6 (single/multicore), the Snapdragon 8 Elite reference device scored 3,212 / 10,318, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) got 2,300 / 7,249, the iPhone 16 Pro (A18 Pro) achieved 3,400 / 8,391, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max (A18 Pro) reached 3,386 / 8306.In Speedometer 3 (Chrome), the Snapdragon 8 Elite reference device had a speed of 33.2, compared to 16.3 for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, 28.1 for the iPhone 16 Pro, and 27.8 for the iPhone 16 Pro Max.In Wild Life Unlimited (fps), the Snapdragon 8 Elite reference device reached 150.9, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra got 121.8, the iPhone 16 Pro had 109.3, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max was 107.5. In Wild Life Unlimited Extreme (fps), it scored 41.7, against 29.8 for the Galaxy S24 Ultra, 23 for the iPhone 16 Pro, and 22.9 for the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Pricing and Availability

Prices for the Nubia Z70 Ultra start at $829, and with the code SAVE50, you can get a $50 discount. Shipping is expected to begin from December 5. While we're eagerly awaiting the Samsung Galaxy S25 to launch with this chipset early next year, if you can't wait, the Nubia is a viable option to order today.