Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip announced; to power Samsung’s mixed reality headsets

Apple’s Vision Pro was first announced at WWDC 2023. The device is powered by Apple’s M2 system on a chip coupled with the Apple R1 processor, used for real-time input processing. However, it’s been nearly seven months, and there’s no word on when it will hit the shelves yet. Well, other brands have used this time to catch up and perfect their own platforms. One such brand happens to be Qualcomm, which has just unveiled the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset.

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip features and key specifications

The Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 is a new chip platform for mixed-reality headsets and is the successor to the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, which powers Meta’s Quest 3 headset. The chipset packs a GPU that is 15 per cent faster and a CPU that is 20 per cent faster than that of its predecessor, and also consumes 50 per cent less power.

The new chip platform supports 3K resolution over each eye and can support spatial computing at a 4.3K resolution at 90fps. Moreover, it also supports 12 cameras as compared to 10 in its processor, which enables a full colour-video passthrough with a latency of less than 12ms.

What’s cool is the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 comes with more enhanced AI features. One such feature is foveated rendering. What this does is, it blurs areas you aren’t focusing on blurrier to save power and improve the headset’s performance. Moreover, it also comes with Wi-Fi 7 support.

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The XR2+ Gen 2, Qualcomm says, will be used by Samsung and Google to power their Extended Reality (XR) experiences. Should this be the case, Samsung might just beat the Apple Vision Pro with its own XR headset when it comes to image resolution.

Images of the prototype for the same first surfaced in August last year. However, the company had reportedly decided to delay launching their product as well to overhaul the design and hardware on the same as well, after seeing the Apple Vision Pro.