Qualcomm just dropped a bombshell this week with the unveiling of its new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. Even if you’re not glued to the smartphone chipset scene, this is a big deal. Qualcomm is promising a major leap forward in performance and efficiency over the already impressive Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – excellent news for next year’s flagship Android phones. But the Snapdragon 8 Elite offers more than just raw power and efficiency. It holds the potential to fundamentally change the way we capture memories with our smartphone cameras.
So, how exactly is this happening? I delved into this with Judd Heape, Qualcomm’s VP of product management, and came away genuinely excited about the future of smartphone photography – both in the near term and beyond.
The magic lies in what Qualcomm calls its “AI ISP.” An ISP, or Image Signal Processor, is a standard component of every smartphone chip, including Snapdragon’s, handling image processing for your camera. In the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the AI ISP has a much closer connection to the NPU (Neural Processing Unit) than ever before. This might sound technical, but it translates to a massive improvement in how critical camera features operate.
One of the most exciting outcomes is the AI ISP’s impact on auto white balance. This is a game-changer because, as Heape puts it, “One of the things that cameras get wrong a lot is in complex lighting, like having an interior and exterior lit at the same time. You might be outdoors in a parking lot with orange lights… it can really mess up skin tones, and that’s a failure of auto white balance.” This new ISP, thanks to its tight connection with the NPU, can now “generate proper skin tone no matter what the lighting condition is.” The best part? These auto white balance improvements aren’t just applied after you’ve taken a photo. You see those enhancements in real-time through the viewfinder, so the image you see as you’re capturing a moment is the image you’ll get.
But that’s not all. This new ISP also consumes less power. “The power consumption of the ISP has also gone down due to the new architecture,” Heape explained. “So, in interesting use cases, like 4K 60fps HDR video recording, the ISP consumes 25% less power… which means that you’ll have less thermal problems when you’re trying to shoot videos.”
And speaking of video, the new ISP also improves Qualcomm’s “temporal noise filters.” These filters analyze more video frames than before, resulting in “cleaner video than ever before. It was good before, but it’s even better now.”
These aren’t flashy AI camera features like the Google Pixel 9’s Add Me mode or the numerous camera/photo editing tools in Galaxy AI. However, they have the potential to genuinely enhance photos and videos for any phone equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Elite. These are the types of AI camera improvements that truly matter.
But what does the future of smartphone cameras look like? Beyond the immediate advancements brought by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Heape shared some insights about the larger picture. While discussing real-time auto white balance enhancements in the viewfinder, he admitted that “the industry needs to drive towards that. What you see is what you get is really important. It gives the photographer confidence… OEMs need to concentrate on that.”
Heape also revealed his “dream application” for Qualcomm’s ISP advancements, highlighting what he’s most eager to see smartphone companies do with it in the years to come. His vision is fascinating: “I think we can get away with two cameras instead of three in some cases… which reduces the processing and power… plus using AI for super resolution and using AI to augment capabilities in lowlight.”
Looking even further into the future, Heape expressed his desire to see AI used to personalize the smartphone camera experience beyond anything we have today: “Your camera getting to know you, and know what you like, and know the edits you tend to make and the shots you like to take… basically training your camera. Learning what kind of shots you like and the composition and the camera getting to know you over time and then making those adjustments for you the more images you shoot. I think that’s kind of where we need to get to next… kind of like having the Copilot PC, if you will, for your camera.”
As someone who’s been somewhat unimpressed with existing AI camera tools, I truly hope Heape’s ideal camera future is the one we’re headed towards – a future where AI works seamlessly in the background, delivering better photos and videos without us even thinking about it. I’m not interested in AI features that transform my photos into something they’re not. I want my phone to capture the best possible picture without me needing to overthink it, and from talking with Heape, that sounds like the future he envisions too.
It feels like we’re on the right track. Since smartphone brands and chip manufacturers began embracing AI wholeheartedly over the past few years, I’ve struggled to get truly excited about much of it. We’ve seen impressive tech demos and a few cool features here and there, but nothing that has fundamentally changed how we use our phones – especially when it comes to the camera.
While it remains to be seen how the Snapdragon 8 Elite and its new ISP will actually perform in real-world scenarios – and whether Heape’s vision of the future is the one we’re truly headed towards – I admit that I’m genuinely curious and hopeful. I firmly believe that the best application of AI is when it works discreetly in the background, enhancing our phone experience without requiring our conscious effort. Give me better white balance and video recording any day of the week over wonky image generator tools. It really feels like Qualcomm is moving in that direction, and if that’s the future of smartphone cameras, count me in!