For as long as I’ve been writing on technology, when it comes to flagship Android phones and the chipsets inside them, I remember that Qualcomm Snapdragon has always had an edge over others. And by others I mean MediaTek chipsets as well as Samsung Exynos processors. In fact, there used to be countless arguments around every Galaxy S launch in India as Samsung often used Exynos chipsets in the Indian variants, while the global variants got Snapdragons.

This year all this has changed. MediaTek, which earlier became the dominant chipmaker in India in terms of volumes, has now narrowed the technology gap as well. Its Dimensity 9500 is as good as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and in some cases even better.

As we enter 2026, we’ve started to see the next generation of Android flagships arrive on the scene. Unlike previous years, a key aspect of these new phones is that many of them are now powered by MediaTek chipsets. This was unimaginable till a few years ago. And yet, here we are. Of the four flagship phones we are going to see in India this month and next, two come with the Dimensity 9500 chipset. These are the flagship Vivo and Oppo phones, namely the Vivo X300 series and the Oppo Find X9 series. The two others – the OnePlus 15 and iQoo 15 – are using the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

And it’s not about price anymore. Earlier assumptions were that Snapdragon would be in more expensive phones, while MediaTek would be in more mainstream devices. But again, if we look at the current flagships, the more expensive ones – Vivo and Oppo devices – have the Dimensity 9500 inside.

Such a development would, without a doubt, be pleasurable for MediaTek and not as comfortable for Qualcomm. But we are not concerned about that here. Instead, I’m here to see what it’s like for consumers. For those looking to purchase their next flagship phone, this is a welcome development. Because it removes the confusion regarding chipset. This year both – the Dimensity 9500 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – are so close to each other in terms of performance on various aspects that the chipset may not matter in the 2025 flagship. Instead, you can focus solely on camera performance, display, design, battery life, and other key aspects when choosing your next phone.

We’ve started getting benchmark scores that reveal the performance and capabilities of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Dimensity 9500. If we look at Geekbench, in CPU performance, both chipsets are quite close to each other, although Snapdragon has a slight advantage due to its slightly higher speed. This gain ranges from 10 to 20 percent, which practically does not matter much in everyday use. However, in terms of graphics performance, the Dimensity 9500 has an advantage. This also ranges between 10 to 20 percent depending on the benchmark.

Apart from the CPU and GPU, both the flagship chipsets are evenly matched, with some wins and some losses for both. For example, the Snapdragon is slightly better in networking speed, but the Dimensity 9500 has the advantage in memory throughput. In terms of battery life too, both offer similar power efficiency. Here at India Today Tech, we’ve tried the OnePlus 15 and the Oppo Find X9. And we have seen excellent battery life in both the phones.

Overall, this is an interesting and welcome development in the Android world. Over the years, the performance of flagship chipsets in Android has remained stagnant. That’s even better than the iPhone and its A series chips like the A19 Pro, which remains a beast. But this year, both Qualcomm and MediaTek are making great progress and have made remarkable leaps forward. The technology advantage from MediaTek is really fantastic. The company is no longer targeting the lower end of the market. Instead, it is finally proving that it can play in the dominant arena, and not only play but win.

The increased competition will also help Android users who are often jealous of the iPhone’s performance. The competition between Qualcomm and MediaTek means that next year we can expect to get even better chipsets than the Dimensity 9500 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. And perhaps next year they will aim not only to surpass each other in capabilities and performance but also try to better the best.