While most of the mobile world is focused on the Qualcomm 888 flagship processor, the company isn’t ready to give up on the chips from its 7-series. The company recently took to Qualcomm.com to announce the Snapdragon 780G mobile platform.
It doesn’t rival the latest flagships in terms of performance, but it does manage to bring some flagship features to a mid-range chipset. That means OEMs could create devices with 5G and other flagship features for lower prices.
What Makes the Qualcomm Snapdragon 780G Special?
Last year, Qualcomm released the 765G and 768G processors, and the firm is using the newly-announced 780G to build upon the features offered by those chips.
The new chip is based on a Kryo 670 CPU. Qualcomm says that the 780G features 40-percent faster processing than last year’s 768G. That’s a huge year-over-year improvement, and it could amount to big things for the mid-range smartphone market.
Perhaps most exciting is the fact that the Snapdragon 780G has a 5nm architecture, which is a first among the firm’s mid-range 7-series chips. That means it’ll feature substantial battery efficiency improvements without sacrificing power.
Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management at Qualcomm Technologies, spoke about the new chips’ benefits. “Since introducing the Snapdragon 7-series three years ago, more than 350 devices have launched based on 7-series mobile platforms. Today, we are continuing this momentum by introducing the Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform.”
For AI, the chip features Qualcomm’s 6th-gen AI engine that can offer double the performance of previous-gen chips in that department.
Another improvement to the chip comes with its camera capabilities. It can capture up to three photos simultaneously at up to 25 MP, which is a game-changer for mid-range phones. Additionally, the new chip is able to handle low-light photos better. It also gets support for 4K HDR video capture, which could go a long way towards closing the game between mid-range and flagships.
One of the most exciting big changes Qualcomm has introduced recently is Qualcomm Sound, and the 780G features full support for the new platform’s higher-quality 24-bit wireless audio.
It also features full support for every band of 5G, which is all but required for a chip released in 2021.
When Will Phones Use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 780G?
Unfortunately, Qualcomm didn’t announce any phones that’ll take advantage of the new chips yet, but we’d expect OEMs to announce some devices shortly, as this chip does seem to offer a solid price to performance ratio.
