Qualcomm announces its own smartphone with Snapdragon 888 and 6.78 “OLED screen

Qualcomm has announced the EXP21, a smartphone it will sell as a Qualcomm phone. The EXP21 was developed together with ASUS, this company will also produce the smartphone. It is a high-end smartphone with a suggested retail price of $ 1499.

The EXP21 gets a Snapdragon 888 5G-soc with 16GB lpddr5 memory and 512GB UFS3.1 storage. That Qualcomm opts for the Snapdragon 888-soc is somewhat striking. Qualcomm presents the device as a device for people who are ‘first in line for premium performance and innovation’. A few weeks ago, the company showed the Snapdragon 888 Plus, a slightly faster variant of the 888. Why the EXP21 does not get that soc is unclear.

The smartphone also has a 6.78″ OLED screen with a resolution of 2448×1080 pixels and a refresh rate of 144Hz. The maximum brightness is 1200cd/m². The screen supports hdr10 and hdr10+ and can display 111.23 percent of the DCI-P3 color space. This display also gets Cornings Gorilla Glass Victus. This screen is flanked by two speakers, the top one is a front-firing variant, the bottom speaker is directed to the side. Also below the screen is Qualcomms 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2 for fingerprints.

There are three camera sensors on the back, at least two of which come from Sony. The main sensor is an IMX686-64 megapixel sensor. This sensor is 1/1.73″ in size. In addition, there is an IMX363-12 megapixel sensor for wide-angle photos, with a sensor size of 1/2.55″. The telephoto camera sensor is an 8-megapixel sensor with three times optical zoom. With these cameras, the EXP21 should be able to record up to 8k videos at 30fps, or 4k at 60fps. The front camera has a 24-megapixel sensor.

The EXP21 measures 173.15×77.25×9.55mm, weighs 210 grams and comes with Android 11. The smartphone supports Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth version 5.2, NFC and has a 4000mAh battery. It is not clear how long the smartphone will last on a full battery charge. Qualcomm does report that it can be charged with Quick Charge 5 and a maximum of 65W. The smartphone also comes with a 65W fast charger. In addition, the phone comes with wireless in-ear headphones from Master & Dynamic and Qualcomm logos.

For the EXP21 Qualcomm asks 1533 euros converted with VAT. Presale starts in August; when the smartphones will be delivered is unknown. Qualcomm speaks of a ‘limited-edition smartphone’ and says that the phone will appear in the US, China, the UK and Germany anyway. More regions are not excluded.