For years, Qualcomm‘s flagship Snapdragon series primarily consisted of a single top-tier processor per cycle. This year, however, the company introduced a dual-flagship approach. We have the top-tier Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the slightly reduced Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. Now, OnePlus itself has confirmed that significant strategic shift was directly inspired by a direct rival: Apple.
Rudolf Xu, Senior Product Marketing Manager at OnePlus, provided insight into Qualcomm’s motivation. He explained that the company recognized it needed to “fight back” against trends established by the competition.
Apple’s influenced Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chips
The key insight came from analyzing Apple’s recent shift away from reusing previous-generation chips in its new base model iPhones. Historically, if you bought a non-Pro iPhone, you often received the chip from the prior year’s Pro model.
However, Apple began adopting a dual-silicon strategy. For example, when the iPhone 16 Pro received the A18 Pro chip, the standard iPhone 16 received a separate, dedicated A18 chip—not last year’s A17. This meant that even base models received advancements from the current generation’s architecture. This move to differentiate two flagship chips within the same generational cycle inspired Qualcomm to do the same.
The logic is simple: the “Elite” version allows Qualcomm to push the boundaries of power for premium flagships, while the standard “Gen 5” allows them to bring the core architectural benefits of the current year to a wider range of high-end, but more affordable, devices.
A good move for consumers and brands
For consumers, the change is mostly psychological and tangible. Xu noted that users feel better knowing their device uses a “latest chipset, a new one, instead of borrowing an older one from last year.” Both the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 share the same fundamental CPU and GPU architecture. This shared foundation is key to the success of the strategy.
For phone manufacturers like OnePlus, this dual-flagship strategy offers a big technical advantage. Because the chips share the same software baseline and architecture, it makes it simple to “trick down the latest benefits” from their top-tier phones (like the OnePlus 15) to more accessible models (like the upcoming OnePlus 15R). In other words, it is easier to implement advanced features across the entire product line.
The OnePlus 15R will be the first phone to launch with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 in global markets. The device will use the recently announced OnePlus Ace 6T in China as a foundation.
