The Samsung Galaxy S25 will surely bring a new twist to the smartphone market with its several upgrades, expanded AI tools, decent design, new features, and many more, including a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 is expected to be powered by Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip, which has enough faster performance, but the fact is that if this expectation comes true, then the price will touch the cloud.
A well-reliable tipster The Digital Chat Station is also hinting that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 with the model number SM870 will effectively increase smartphone prices because the chip will be more expensive than its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The display and the chipset are already the most expensive components of a smartphone, and a higher price for the chipset could make it impossible for a smartphone brand to digest.
The OEMs should choose options such as passing on the higher price to consumers with higher smartphone prices, using a low-budget chipset such as the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, and cutting the manufacturing cost by using affordable components, for instance, a display, camera, or battery. However, the higher price for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will likely be so great that bringing down the prices of other components could not make up for the higher price caused by the chipset.
The reason behind the high prices appears to be Qualcomm’s new custom CPU core (Oryon), which can match the performance of Apple’s A and M series chips used in iPhones, iPads, and Macs, so there will be an efficient upgrade in performance compared to predecessor Snapdragon chips.
This chipset will be built based on TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process node, N3E. However, it’s not a surprise since we already experienced that Qualcomm’s new chip has caused smartphone brands to raise their prices efficiently. A couple of years ago, in 2020, the Snapdragon 865 forced Xiaomi to raise the price of the Mi 10 by $140 more than the Mi 9.
However, Samsung has yet to release any official announcement regarding the price of the upcoming Galaxy S25 series. It will be interesting to see what new novelties this upcoming phone will bring and whether the price will be worth the cost or not.
