Qualcomm announces four new mid-market socs

Chip manufacturer Qualcomm will announce four new chips in the Snapdragon 400, 600 and 700 series on Tuesday. According to the manufacturer, the chips are intended for smartphones in the middle segment and should appear this year.

Three of the four chips that Qualcomm announces support 5G and should make a difference in the middle segment. Phones in this price range are “the smartphones that will make the move to 5G possible for many people, especially in emerging markets,” according to Qualcomm CEO Deepu John. Yet Qualcomm is also releasing a soc with only 4G support, because the manufacturer still sees a high demand for these chips.

Of the four chips, the Snapdragon 695 seems to have received the biggest upgrade over its predecessor. The 695 is the successor to the 690 and is, according to Qualcomm, 30 percent faster at rendering graphics and 15 percent faster at performing CPU tasks. The other two chips with 5G support are upgrades from their predecessors. These are the Snapdragon 778G Plus and the Snapdragon 480 Plus. These should be a fraction better than the first versions of the socs.

Finally, there is the Snapdragon 680 which is aimed at devices that only support 4G. The four chips should still be available before the end of 2021. Honor, Motorola, Oppo, HMD Global, Xiaomi and Vivo, among others, have indicated that they will implement the new Qualcomm chips in new devices.