Google is reportedly working on a Snapdragon 710-based phone for next year

This week marked the beginning of Pixel 3 and 3 XL rumor season, and one of the few reports about those phones that brought us solid details came from WinFuture’s Roland Quandt‏. Now, he’s shared the first information on another mysterious Google device — and this one’s supposedly built around a new Snapdragon chip.

Roland says that Google is “working on a mobile device based on the Snapdragon 710 currently scheduled for launch in the 1st half of 2019.” Notably, he doesn’t say for sure that this is a smartphone, but given that it’s a “mobile” device and has the Snadragon 710, I think we can safely make that assumption.

All we know for now is that the device is based on the Snapdragon 710, which Qualcomm just announced last week. Here’s what Qualcomm had to say about what these new 700-series chips are intended for:

The Snapdragon 710 is designed with highly efficient architectures for artificial intelligence, featuring a multi-core AI Engine and neural network processing capabilities. The Snapdragon 710 is the first mobile platform in the new 700-tier portfolio, designed to exceed what is expected from today’s high-tier mobile experiences by bringing select premium-tier features to a broader audience.

There’s no solid information on what this device is yet, but there are a few possibilities. We told you way back in January of 2017 that Google is working on a budget Pixel, a report that was corroborated by Indian media just a couple months ago. That report said that Google was planning to launch that device as soon as this July, however.

Given that the purpose of the Snapdragon 700-series is to bring top-tier performance at a lower cost, this device being a “budget” Pixel might make sense — but a launch timeframe of mid-next-year obviously doesn’t line up with reports of Google planning to launch the budget device in just a couple months.

It’s all blurry for now, but hopefully we’ll learn more about this mystery device in the coming months.

Off to Taiwan for @computex_taipei today, but here's a tidbit for ya: Google is working on a "mobile" device based on the Snapdragon 710 currently scheduled for launch in the 1st half of 2019. Sounds like this might be the (or one of them) upcoming mid-range Pixel phone.

— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) June 2, 2018