Today Qualcomm is introducing three new System-on-Chips at the 4G/5G summit in Hong Kong, spanning across the Snapdragon 400 and 600 series. Two of the new chipsets fit in the Snapdragon 600 family and the remainder bears the Snapdragon 427 moniker, yet all three SoCs share several characteristics and the same philosophies, including “boost performance, enhance connectivity, and help improve charge times.”
The mid-range smartphone market continues to grow, and according to Qualcomm, over the past 12 months around 400 designs based on the Snapdragon 600 series have either been released by OEMs or are currently in the design pipeline. With this in mind Qualcomm is now improving its mid-range chipset series with new SoCs, all of which take advantage of an integrated Snapdragon X9 LTE modem for up to 50% faster upload speeds compared to the X8 LTE, Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology to improve charging times by up to 4X compared to conventional methods, and dual camera support for better imaging and photos “across a wide variety of lighting and shooting situations”. The names of the new SoCs sharing these characteristics are Snapdragon 427, Snapdragon 626, and Snapdragon 653.
As far as specifications are concerned, the Snapdragon 427 is more or less the same as the Snapdragon 425 featuring the same quad-core processor clocked at frequencies of up to 1.4 GHz; however, the new Snapdragon 427 includes the aforementioned X9 LTE modem, as well as TruSignal antenna boost technology and dual ISPs. Next in line is the Snapdragon 626 boasting a 10% performance increase compared to the Snapdragon 625, translating to a higher operating frequency for the Cortex-A53 cores which now have clock speeds of 2.2 GHz, up from 2.0 GHz. Much like the Snapdragon 425, the 626 too, benefits from TruSignal technology and allows for dual camera setups. Last but certainly not least, the Snapdragon 653 operates at frequencies of up to 1.95 GHz, it has double the addressable RAM (up to 8 GB) which should allow for improved multitasking, and the chipset also includes VoLTE and Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) support for improved call quality. According to Qualcomm, the new Snapdragon 626 and 653 should become available to customers “later this fall”. As for devices powered by the Snapdragon 427, these units should become available for purchase early next year.
