Qualcomm backtracks with Snapdragon – future Android phones affected by surprise decision

Qualcomm has announced its latest Snapdragon chip, due to power the premium Android phones of 2026 and beyond, and there's a surprising twist in this tale. The new hardware will be known as Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

But wait, what happened to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, 3 or 4? Having dropped the "Gen" moniker from its naming strategy with the launch of Snapdragon 8 Elite in 2024, the company has now jumped back into the sequential generational numbering.

If you're confused, we're not surprised, as this looks like a backtrack in the naming policy. But Qualcomm has explained everything in a blog post.

It outlines that Snapdragon 8 Elite is still the name for the top mobile device hardware that it offers, but Gen 5 sees it slotting into the Snapdragon 8 family more neatly.

Cast your minds back to 2021 and we saw the launch of the first Snapdragon 8 series, coming in to replace the Snapdragon 800 series, which had been in place since 2013. That's where the generational numbering started, giving us 8 Gen 1, 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 3 in 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively. Then there was a pause for 8 Elite, but now we're back with 8 Elite Gen 5.

Qualcomm's decision is odd but makes sense

There was always a question of how numbering would work and if there would be a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, which is what the new hardware has been known as. The change in naming was leaked a couple of weeks ago, but it actually makes sense.

In any year, Qualcomm ranges a lot of different hardware. This allows phones and tablets at a range of prices, with several different Snapdragon 8 series offerings. Those often appear as an "s" or a "Plus", usually with some tweak to make it slightly lower powered, but also more affordable.

Qualcomm has confirmed that there will be other Gen 5 products launched, so that means we could see Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 as a step down, or perhaps Snapdragon 8 Gen 5s. These usually appear some time after the flagship hardware has launched, often powering sub-flagship phones.

The full announcement for the new hardware will take place at Snapdragon Summit next week

What phones will use Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5?

It's reasonable to expect that flagship phones from most leading brands will use Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

For the Samsung Galaxy S26, that's expected to the be Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy (and what a mouthful that is), but you can expect brands like OnePlus, Honor, and Asus to use the hardware soon, too.

The first announcement has come from Xiaomi. If you remember, Xiaomi often appears at Snapdragon Summit to announce that its next-gen phones are using the hardware on the day it's announced.

And that's what's happened here, with Xiaomi announcing on Weibo (via 9to5Google) that the Xiaomi 17, Xiaomi 17 Pro and Xiaomi 17 Pro Max will use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 hardware.

There's not long to wait until we know a lot more about just how powerful this new hardware is.