Qualcomm is one of the most preferred chipset manufacturer for smartphones, much more than MediaTek. The top-of-the-line 800 series as well as the lower range 400 series have been known to be used in a variety of smartphones.
Strengthening its foothold in the smartphone and tablet market, the company has launched the Snapdragon 427 chipset for the mass-phone market and the 626 and 653 chipsets for the mid-range smartphones and tablets. At the 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong on October 17, Qualcomm Technologies announced the launch of these new Snapdragon SoCs
These three chipsets are only slightly different from the previous generation, with the addition of support for network flexibility on a new modem. Mediatek’s latest processors added the support for dual cameras, and Qualcomm has added same for all the three series.
What is new in these chipsets?
The three chipsets have integrated Snapdragon X9 LTE modem Cat 7 downlink / Cat 13 uplink (300Mbps DL; 150Mbps UL), engineered to achieve up-to 50 percent faster upload speeds than the X8 LTE. They also support Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology which is touted to be 4 times faster than the predecessor.
There is also dual camera support for clear imaging and photos across a wide variety of lighting and shooting situation. All these processors also boast of upto 10% quicker performance.
The Snapdragon 653 processor hosts a CPU speed increase up-to 1.95GHz, along with additional architectural improvements. Addressable RAM has doubled, up to 8GB, designed to improve multitasking and overall system performance. The Snapdragon 653 also implements Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) on VoLTE calls.
Snapdragon 626 delivers CPU speeds of up-to 2.2GHz, for as much as a 10 percent performance improvement over the 625, and also implements Qualcomm TruSignal antenna boost. TruSignal is engineered to improve signal reception in congested areas, making voice and data connections reliable and with superior quality.
The Snapdragon 427 is the first in the Snapdragon 400 family to offer TruSignal antenna tuning. It is also a massive improvement from the previous generations for supporting dual cameras. This way even cheaper smartphones that might support dual cameras in future could come equipped with this SoC.
The coming generation of smartphones in 2017 will probably be fitted with these chipsets and as the technology improves, cheaper smartphones could be seen with the 600 series.
Source: Qualcomm