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Qualcomm's new mobile processor brings 4K to your pocket

Qualcomm's new mobile processor brings 4K to your pocket

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Qualcomm (STOCK)
Qualcomm (STOCK)

Qualcomm revealed its speedy Snapdragon 800 mobile processor this past January, and since then it's been used in numerous notable devices, from the Nexus 5 to the Xperia Z1. Now, less than a year later its successor is already on its way — and this time it supports 4K. The freshly announced Snapdragon 805 supports the "ultra" high definition standard for both watching and capturing video, and Qualcomm claims that it's the first mobile processor to feature "system-level Ultra HD support." The new processor also features improved performance thanks to the new Adreno 420 GPU, which the company says offers 40 percent more graphics processing power than the 800. Qualcomm says to expect the processor in actual devices starting in the first half of next year, quite a bit sooner than Samsung's prediction of 4K smartphones by 2015.