Nokia and OnePlus are going to release budget smartphones with 5G

HMD Global and OnePlus, among others, are working on budget models with 5G, according to an announcement from Qualcomm. The soc that will be in it is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G. The soc also supports screens with a higher refresh rate than its predecessor.

In addition to Nokia licensee HMD Global and OnePlus, Oppo and realme are also working with the Snapdragon 480 5G, Qualcomm reports. Earlier it appeared that Lenovo is working on a Motorola phone with this soc. The first phones with the Snapdragon 480 should appear in the coming months, according to Qualcomm.

The X51 modem in the soc supports 5G at lower frequencies, but also at mmWave frequencies, according to the spec sheet. The maximum speed on 5G is 2.5Gbit/s down and 660Mbit/s up, while on 4G it is 800/200Mbit/s. The modem also supports standalone 5G networks, in addition to the current non-standalone networks. In terms of WiFi, the modem has support for 802.11ac and is ‘WiFi 6-ready’.

With this soc, manufacturers can make phones with a maximum of a full-HD screen at 120Hz, with a maximum of 2520×1080 pixels. The soc also supports 90Hz displays with 720p resolution. The Snapdragon 480 5G has eight Kryo 460 cores at up to 2GHz with an Adreno 619 GPU. The soc supports up to Lpddr4x memory at 2133MHz and UFS 2.2 storage, although there is also eMMC support. Qualcomm has the soc made at 8nm.