Few days after announcing their flagship Snapdragon 888 Plus 5G processor at MWC 2021, Qualcomm has announced a smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders designed in collaboration with ASUS. The smartphone is called “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders” and targets the 1.6 million Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Insider program members. However, it will be widely available in August.

“…this limited-edition smartphone is coming soon to the U.S., China, UK and Germany with more regions in the works. This phone was made specifically for you, and we can’t wait for you to check it out and let the community know what you think,” mentions the official Qualcomm website.

Just like a flagship Android phone, it has an Octa-core 2.84GHz processor, Adreno 660 GPU, 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, 512GB of storage, a 6.78″ Samsung AMOLED display of 1200 nits brightness with a 144Hz refresh rate. All these features and specs for a whopping $1499. In addition, it features a 64MP main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide, and an 8MP telephoto rear camera lens, along with a 24MP front-facing camera. Speaking of camera sensors, Qualcomm’s triple-camera array can shoot 8K videos at 30fps and also have Qualcomm’s AI Zoom. The phone runs Android 11 and has a 4,000mAh battery with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 5 technology.

At $1500, Smartphone for Snapdragon has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 processor instead of their latest flagship 888 Plus 5G chipset, announced a few days back at MWC 2021. Moreover, since the phone has been designed and made possible in collaboration with ASUS, it takes queues from ASUS smartphones.

The phone internals are similar to ASUS’s ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, which was released earlier this year. However, the main camera sensor is from ASUS’s Zenfone 7 Pro. The same goes for the 12MP Sony sensor, which is also used in previous ASUS smartphones.

Snapdragon Elite Gaming is coming to this phone, which means high performance during gameplays on the phone. In addition, it packs Snapdragon Sound, which includes features like low Bluetooth latency, listening profiles, active noise cancellation, and 24-bit 96kHz audio support.

The package includes $299 wireless earbuds from Master & Dynamic. However, these wireless earphones have the Snapdragon logo and Snapdragon Sound written on their case.

Here are the quick specs of the Snapdragon Insider phone:

64MP main lens + 12MP ultrawide + 8MP telephoto
24MP front camera with AI auto-zoom
8K video recording at 30fps
Snapdragon 888
6.78-inch Samsung AMOLED 144Hz (1200 nits brightness)
Gorilla Glass Victus
512GB storage
16GB RAM
4,000mAh battery
Android 11
Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 support (0 to 70% in 52 minutes)
5G support
Price: $1,499

All these high-end specs, most of which are no longer the latest, including Snapdragon 888, make us question the price tag of $1499. These features don’t justify a price this high for a smartphone like this. Since this phone is mainly targeted at Insiders, it is up to the users if they want to buy this phone for this hefty price.