The Helio X30 exceeded expectations in the spec department, it’s time to see what kind of performance it will offer.
Even though Samsung did not unveil their Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus flagship smartphones at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, we’ve seen plenty of great tech there. LG presented their G6 flagship, Sony pitched in their flagship Xperia XZ Premium smartphone, Huawei launched the P10 and P10 Plus flagships, ZTE has shown off their new concept Gigabit Phone, while Samsung finally launched their new tablet, the Galaxy Tab S3. These are only some of the announcements that we’ve seen at MWC 2017, as a ton of companies presented their products. Now, MediaTek also joined all those companies, as this Taiwan-based processor manufacturer decided to announce its new flagship SoC, the Helio X30.
MediaTek actually introduced the Helio X30 a while back, but they did not release its full specifications back then, nor did the company introduce the Helio X30’s availability. Well, that changed during MWC 2017, and the Helio X30 is actually even more powerful than people initially thought. The Helio X30 is actually made using a 10nm manufacturing process, which is something rumors have been reporting, but very few people believed will happen. For comparison’s sake, the Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895 SoCs are also made using a 10nm process, though there are some considerable differences between those three processors. In any case, the Helio X30 will be one of the most utilized processors out there this year, as was its predecessor, the Helio X20. Many China-based smartphone manufacturers opted to use the Helio X20, and also a ton of companies who are not based in China, as MediaTek’s processors are extremely compelling, and they’re considerably more affordable than the competition.
MediaTek had announced that the Helio X30 will be available to manufacturers starting in Q2 this year, which means that we could start seeing the first Helio X30-powered smartphones in the coming weeks at the earliest. Now, the Helio X30 SoC is based on a Tri-Cluster architecture, just like the Helio X20, which means you’re getting two ARM Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 2.5GHz, four ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at 2.2GHz, and four ARM Cortex-A35 cores which are clocked at 1.9GHz. According to MediaTek, this processor is 50% less power hungry compared to its predecessor, and also offers a 35% performance boost compared to the Helio X20. The MediaTek Helio X30 SoC packs in a PowerVR Series7XT Plus GPU which is running at 800MHz, and that GPU is 60% less power hungry than the GPU MediaTek used in their last-gen flagship processor. On top of all that, MediaTek included their CorePilot 4.0 technology inside of this chip, and you can read more about that by following this link.
The Helio X30 is definitely the biggest announcement in the SoC department at this year’s Mobile World Congress, and one of the more important announcements overall, which is why we’ve decided to list it along with some other products as ‘Best of MWC 2017’. You can expect to see this processor in a lot of smartphones this year, and it will be interesting to see what kind of a performance it will offer once the first smartphones become available, and how it will stack up against the competition.
