Week 39 wrap-up: Snapdragon's 2nm duo lands, Xiaomi 18 Pro and vivo X500 family go official
Qualcomm's new 2nm flagship chips kicked off a packed week that also brought Xiaomi's 18 Pro pair and vivo's three-phone X500 lineup.
Summer is officially over in the tech world. The last full week of September was stacked with launches, so here is the quick version of everything that mattered.
Qualcomm set the tone with two new flagship chips: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. Both are made on TSMC's 2nm process and bring refreshed Oryon CPU cores, a new Adreno GPU and stronger on-device AI. The Extreme variant is the top dog, while the standard Gen 6 is meant for a wider range of flagships. Phones using them should start shipping before the year is out.
Xiaomi wasted no time. The 18 Pro (6.4-inch) and 18 Pro Max (6.9-inch) both have OLED main screens with hardware-level privacy features, plus small secondary displays on the back. Each carries two 200MP Leica-tuned cameras. The Pro runs the regular 8 Elite Gen 6 with a 7,000mAh battery, while the Pro Max gets the Extreme chip and an 8,500mAh cell. Prices in China start at CNY 5,999 (about $840) and CNY 6,999 (about $980), and a global release is promised for later this year.
vivo answered with the X500, X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max. The first two use MediaTek's Dimensity 9600, while the Pro Max moves up to the Dimensity 9600+ and the most capable Zeiss camera system of the three, including a new 4K 240fps cinematic slow-motion mode. All three run OriginOS 7 and pack big batteries. China sales begin September 30, with a global rollout planned for October 27.
