14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Qualcomm recently held an event to announce the successors to last year’s Snapdragon 653 and 626 platforms. The new mid-range platforms will be available this quarter and a number of smartphones are expected to incorporate them.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 is based on the 14nm process and the platform has eight Kryo 260 CPUs clocked at 2.2GHz, making it 20% faster than the previous Snapdragon 653. It’s also the first Snapdragon 6xx platform to feature Kryo CPUs.
The Adreno 512 graphics processing unit that is coupled with Snapdragon 660 is 30% faster than the previous Adreno 510 GPU. Qualcomm brought major improvements to the latest mid-range platform and integrated Snapdragon X12 LTE modem, Wi-Fi 802.11ac Wave 2, 2x2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.0 and Qualcomm TruSignal adaptive antenna tuning.
The new Snapdragon platform is capable of capturing 4k videos, showing content in QHD resolution or charging smartphones faster with Quick Charge 4.0. The chipmaker also improved battery consumption, reducing it by 50 to 70% for location services and 60% on WiFi for Snapdragon 660.
The new Snapdragon platforms support dual-camera setup
Aside from this platform, Qualcomm also introduced Snapdragon 630 based on the same 14nm process, but featuring eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at the same speed of 2.2GHz. This platform is 10% faster than Snapdragon 626, while its Adreno 508 graphics processing unit has its speed improved by 30%. X12 LTE modem, USB 3.1, Bluetooth 5.0 and 4k video capture are also present inside the new platform, but it only supports 1080p displays, while it does have Quick Charge 4.0.
The two chipsets will allow smartphone makers to equip mid-range phones with more advanced cameras. Snapdragon 660 supports up to 24MP single-lens camera setup, as well as two 16MP lenses in a dual-camera system. The same is available for Snapdragon 630, with the exception that it only supports two 13MP sensors in a dual-camera setup, together with zero shutter lag.
Qualcomm has announced that Snapdragon will start shipping to smartphone makers at the end of this quarter, while Snapdragon 630 will be made available at the end of May. Devices running the latest platforms will ship next quarter.
