With CES not too far away, it’s not surprise that this sort of news is already breaking on the web however, this new announcement from Qualcomm is a little bit surprising. Today, the mobile chip giant is announcing their first CPU that’s capable of 64-bit processing, the Snapdragon 410. The Snapdragon 400 series of CPUs is designed for use inside of mid-range devices, such as the $179 Moto G from Motorola. There are a couple of big additions to this latest revision however, many of them bigger additions than the introduction of 64-bit processing.
For one thing, 4G LTE is finally included in Qualcomm’s mid-range cheap, which will allow devices similar to the Moto G get access to the same sort of speeds as the Galaxy S4s and LG G2s out there. The chip features improved support for media capture, with support for up to 13-megapixel cameras and 108p video playback as standard. Qualcomm are obviously known for their incredible range of connectivity options included in their devices and this is no exception. The Snapdragon 410 features their RF360 platform which allows for 3G, 4G LTE, WiFi, NFC, Bluetooth etc all featured in the Snapdragon 410.
As with most announcements like this, the Snapdragon 410 isn’t coming to market any time soon. Only a few days ago did we hear whispers of Qualcomm working on 64-bit CPUs and unsurprisingly, devices with the 410 won’t be hitting the market until the second-half of 2014. As the Press Release states: ” The Snapdragon 410 processor is anticipated to begin sampling in the first half of 2014 and expected to be in commercial devices in the second half of 2014.”
Unlike the recently announced Snapdragon 805, the Snapdragon 410 is aimed more towards the Chinese market and developing nations. Qualcomm has been losing ground to MediaTek in China but, with the recent launch of 4G in the country, 2014 could be the year that Qualcomm take the mid-range back with a chip capable of harnessing these new speeds. We’re pretty sure that Qualcomm will have even more news for us in just a month or so at CES 2014 but, until then they’ve already made quite a bit of noise with the Snapdragon 805 and now this, the Snapdragon 410.