Qualcomm is apparently testing its Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 chipset, aka SC8380, inside a development device with a 10-inch display. This indicates that the chipset will be aimed at 10-inch (or larger) tablets and likely some 2-in-1 tablets and even Windows on ARM laptops. Microsoft might even try another Surface Neo-like device with two screens.

These, of course, will go up against Apple’s iPads with M-series chipsets and MacBook Airs. Which is fitting since the chipset and its Oryon CPU cores were designed by Nuvia, a company formed by former Apple employees who worked on said M-series chipsets.

The Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 (codenamed Hamoa) will have 12 CPU cores, 8 performance (up to 3.4 GHz) and 4 efficiency cores (up to 2.5 GHz). There will be an integrated Adreno 740 GPU, which is quite capable, although larger form factors like laptops can also be fitted with external GPUs (connected over 8x PCIe 4.0), as long as they have the necessary cooling.

These larger devices will also support NVMe (4x PCIe 4.0) drives, although smaller and cheaper devices are likely to adhere to UFS 4.0. Connectivity options include USB 4 (based on Thunderbolt 4) with DisplayPort 1.4a.

Qualcomm has reportedly been testing Hamoa-based development devices since November last year. It’s unclear exactly when the first commercial devices will be available, it could be later this year or even early 2024. We should start to see leaked benchmark results before then, though.

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