Forget the iPhone 17 Pro Max – Snapdragon 8 Elite could bring my most requested camera feature to Android phones

I shoot a lot of videos. I’m not just referring to the short snippets I share on social media, but also the ones I photograph professionally. I usually rely on my trusty Panasonic Lumix S5 to do all of the heavy lifting, but I often use some of the best camera phones as backup or B-roll cameras to supplement my footage.

With the announcement of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform, it could finally offer the one video camera feature I’ve been asking for – and the iPhone 17 Pro Max better not worry.

Qualcomm’s latest flagship chipset is now official, but luckily it won’t be long before we see Android phones equipped with it. In fact, the Asus ROG Phone 9 series is one of the first phones to feature the new silicon based on the company’s 3nm manufacturing process. And the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the OnePlus 13 are also on the way.

While the Snapdragon 8 Elite should be a beast when it comes to all the things we do on our phones, what I’m most interested in is how the chip improves the camera capture capabilities of future phones.

I asked about the possibility of recording videos not just from a single camera, but from all of them at the same time. As a videographer, I can’t tell you how a feature like this can be useful in the editing room, so I’m really excited to see how this comes into play.

A game changer for videos

(Image credit: Qualcomm)

The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max certainly brought new features that I love, like Audio Mix to improve the sound of video recording and the ability to now film at 4K 120 fps. Interestingly, you can actually record videos on an iPhone at the same time using a third-party app like DoubleTake. However, I found that it is buggy and recording is limited to only two cameras.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform could give Android phones a leg up on iPhones by offering the ability to record from three 48MP sensors simultaneously at 30fps. That’s a big deal because there’s a lot of data packed into just a single 4K video source, not to mention having to deal with three sources. Offering a feature like this would give me the opportunity to play around with the footage in the editing room.

For interview-style clips, I can imagine that having three separate video files from a phone’s main, ultra-wide, and telephoto cameras could be beneficial later. In a sequence I can use the main camera footage – and then switch to the telephoto feed when they have something interesting to say.

The average person might not be inclined to shoot video with three cameras at once, but considering Apple likes to portray the iPhone 16 Pro as a filmmaker’s camera, this is the kind of advanced feature I’d like to see on more phones.

More practical applications for this

Google Pixel 9 Pro XL takes a photo.

(Image credit: Future)

I know how to effectively use this Snapdragon 8 Elite feature in my workflow, but I bet you’re wondering what other practical applications this feature could have. Short videos are king. TikTok and Instagram have proven this countless times, but I think this ability to record video from three cameras could come in handy.

For starters, it could be something that allows people to not worry about which camera to choose before shooting. I know this has happened to me many times, like leaning on the main camera instead of the ultra-wide camera to take a shot – and midway through I realize I’m cutting some things out of the shot.

For phones with Snapdragon 8 Elite, three-camera shooting could be the default option. Once they’re done recording, they can go back to preview the footage and select only the video they want. So if there is a moment when using the ultra wide angle shot makes more sense, you can swap it out to make the video appear more seamless.

All of this adds up to an experience that you can take care of in the first place and that I think more and more people can embrace. Regardless, it’s this kind of convenience that allows video camera photographers to get the most out of their device without having to worry too much about the logistics of shooting. In the meantime, Apple needs to keep a careful eye on what happens next year, because the iPhone 17 Pro Max will certainly need its own tricks to maintain Apple’s momentum of having the best camera phone on the market.

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