Qualcomm has quietly listed an underpowered variant of its flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chip with one fewer Performance core.

The lower-tier offering comes as Qualcomm is rumored to be working on midrange and overclocked Snapdragon 8 Elite variants.

Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor back in October, and now we are waiting for a more affordable variant expected to be called the Snapdragon 8s Elite. However, it seems there’s an unexpected twist in the story.

Clamshell foldables should benefit the most from the binned Snapdragon 8 Elite due to their limited cooling capacity. All the best Android phones that have already launched or are due for release later this year will use Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chip.