Are MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500e and 8500 Coming in January?

Imagine the smartphone market waking up in January with a fresh wave of near-flagship phones powered by MediaTek. Leaks now point to the first devices using the Dimensity 9500e and 8500 arriving early next year, promising big batteries and surprisingly high-end specs for more affordable handsets.

Leaked timeline and context

With Qualcomm preparing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, MediaTek appears ready to counter with two new chips targeted at the sub-flagship segment. Tipster Digital Chat Station suggests the first phones with the Dimensity 9500e and 8500 won’t appear until January — giving manufacturers time to polish designs and battery endurance for launches at the start of the year.

Specs rundown: What to expect from each chip

• Dimensity 9500e — Positioned as the higher-performance option: reportedly built on TSMC’s 3nm N3E node, using a CPU cluster of 1× Cortex-X925, 3× Cortex-X4 and 4× Cortex-A720, peaking at about 3.73GHz. The GPU is said to be an Arm G925 MP12 clocked near 1612MHz.
• Dimensity 8500 — Aimed at more affordable phones while keeping strong performance: based on TSMC’s 4nm process with an eight-core layout centered on ARM A725 "big" cores. The prime core tops out around 3.4GHz, paired with a Mali-G720 GPU tuned around 1.5GHz. Early AnTuTu leaks put this chip near the 2.2 million point range.

Why these chips matter for buyers and brands

MediaTek’s strategy looks clear: bring flagship-class features — high clocks, beefy GPUs and efficient process nodes — down into the mid-to-upper midrange. That can mean phones with fast screens, solid gaming performance and long battery life without flagship price tags.

For manufacturers, the choice between the 9500e and 8500 will be a balance of cost, battery targets and thermal design. The 9500e’s 3nm build and upgraded GPU suggest better peak performance, while the 8500’s all-big-core layout and 4nm node could offer a stronger value proposition for cost-sensitive models.

As always with leaks, take the clock speeds and benchmark numbers with a grain of salt until hands-on reviews appear. But if January is accurate, we can expect a quick succession of product reveals that show how well MediaTek closed the gap on flagship silicon this year.

Stay tuned for official announcements and real-world tests once those first Dimensity 9500e and 8500 phones hit the market.

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