Qualcomm Gets News Of Modest Snapdragons Out Of The Way Before Next Month's Big Chip Launch

Budget smartphones these days do OK with 5G though lack performance in other areas, and so Qualcomm has promised some system-on-chips to give these modest devices some more oomph.

The processors, announced on Tuesday for entry and mid-range 5G smartphones, also clears the deck for big chip announcements Qualcomm is expected to make at its Snapdragon Tech Summit starting at the end of next month.

The 6nm Snapdragon 695 5G, unveiled this week, is a successor to the 8nm 690 5G used in the OnePlus Nord N10 5G, which is priced under $300, and various other handhelds.

This latest chip features an octa-core Arm-compatible Kryo 660 CPU cluster clocked up to 2.2GHz that has, we're told, a 15 per cent performance lift over the Snapdragon 690, which was based on the Kryo 560. The 695 5G supports 108-megapixel photo capture and dual 1080p video capture, and is said to be 30 per cent faster on graphics performance than the 690 with its Adreno 619 GPU.

The chip includes support for sub-6GHz and mmWave bands, and can work globally, Qualcomm claimed. The modem supports up to 2.5Gbps of 5G download speeds, and 1.5Gbps of upload.

• Intel, Qualcomm win deal to design 7nm silicon for US defense agencies
• Qualcomm's bumper Q3 growth comes with supply constraints warning, but Intel may ride to the rescue
• Intel announces AWS has become a client, Qualcomm likes its future tech, advances that as proof it's back in business
• How your phone, laptop, or watch can be tracked by their Bluetooth transmissions

The other silicon offerings are Snapdragon 'Plus' chips: these have the same core architecture as their non-Plus siblings, though with incremental improvements in clock frequencies and data transfer speeds.

The 8nm Snapdragon 480 Plus 5G is based on the same CPU design used in the 480 counterpart, but bumps up the clock speed to 2.2GHz. The download speed is 2.5Gbps, same as its predecessor, though the upload speed improves to 1.5Gbps, compared to 660Mbps on the 480.

The Snapdragon 778G Plus 5G is almost identical to its predecessor, the 778G 5G, which was announced earlier this year. The only noticeable improvement is a minor CPU speed bump to 2.5GHz.

Now we'll see what's to come next. ®