Qualcomm is quite probably the most recognizable name in the mobile processor game. The company’s Snapdragon processors have been powering numerous smartphones, tablets and smartwatches ever since smartphones became a thing. The company’s Snapdragon 810 processor wasn’t exactly a home run everyone thought it would be, it is fueling a number of smartphones all over the world, but some OEMs decided not to use it due to its thermal issues. That being said, everyone has been waiting for the Snapdragon 810’s successor, the Snapdragon 820. The company has been announcing bits and pieces of this SoC for a while now, and have today announced the final piece, along with a slew of other stuff, read on.
The company has announced that the Snapdragon 820 will feature an integrated X12 LTE model. This model will support uplink speeds of up to 150 Mbps, which means it will offer three times faster upload speeds than its predecessor. The chip will also support 802.11ac 2×2 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi. The SoC will even offer support for Wi-Fi 802.11ad, which supports multi-gigabit speeds. The X12 LTE model can choose automatically between LTE and Wi-Fi based on signal quality, end-to-end speed, and internet reachability.
This US-based company has also announced Quick Charge 3.0 today along with the last Snapdragon 820 details. Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 has been used by many smartphones all over the planet, and the company has announced the even faster Quick Charge 3.0 tech today. This tech will recharge your device up to four times faster than regular charging methods according to Qualcomm. The Quick Charge 3.0 uses the Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV), which is an algorithm which allows devices to determine what power level to request at some point in time. This actually enables an optimal power transfer according to the company, and makes charging more efficient. The Quick Charge 3.0 is backward-compatible with Quick Charge 1.0 and 2.0 devices, and it will support a wide range of connectors. The Quick Charge 3.0 will be available in the Snapdragon 820, 620, 618, 617 and 430 SoCs.
Speaking of processors, Qualcomm has also unveiled two SoCs mentioned in the last paragraph, the Snapdragon 617 and 430. Qualcomm says that they’re aiming for mid-range and mid-high end devices with these SoCs. The Snapdragon 617 offers X8 LTE with Cat.7 speeds and 2×20 Carrier Aggregation, dual-ISPs powering photos up to 21-megapixels, and it also ships with an Adreno 405 GPU for graphics. This is an octa-core SoC, featuring Cortex-A53 CPUs clocked up to 1.5GHz. The Snapdragon 430, on the other hand, ships with X6 LTE with Cat.4 speeds and 2×10 Carrier Aggregation, dual-ISPs powering photos up to 21-megapixels, and an Adreno 505 GPU. There are eight Cortex-A53 cores included on the inside which can be clocked up to 1.2GHz.
On top of all this, Qualcomm has unveiled that they shipped more than 200 million Snapdragon 410 units globally since they introduced the chip, which is quite an achievement for the company. That’s more or less it, keep in mind that you’ll be able to read more about Qualcomm’s new announcements in the separate articles you’ll be able to find on our website soon, stay tuned.