Qualcomm on Thursday unveiled three new Snapdragon processors for smartphones that bring premium-tier features to a wider range of affordable smartphones. The three new SoCs, Snapdragon 625, 435 and 425, support advanced features such as LTE with carrier aggregation, dual camera setups and Qualcomm Quick Charge, and also offer better power efficiency and improved call reliability.
In an official press release, the renowned chip maker revealed the new processors will be available in smartphones in the second half of 2016. The Snapdragon 625, 435 and 425 are said to be compatible with each other and with Snapdragon 430. Additional premium-tier features that can be supported using these chipsets include, Snapdragon All Mode, Qualcomm Hexagon DSP (digital signal processor) for audio and a sensor hub and support for 802.11ac with MU-MIMO.
"We develop all of our processor technologies with scalability in mind, so that we can quickly and cost effectively accelerate the availability of premium tier capabilities within the rest of our portfolio of Snapdragon processors, making superior user experiences more accessible to a broader range of consumers," Alex Katouzian, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm Technologies, said in a statement.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 is the top-tier processor in the new series, which uses 14nm FinFET tech. This reduces up to 35 percent of power consumption compared to its predecessor. The chipset supports dual high-res cameras, 24MP photos, up to 13MP selfies, improved low-light imaging and advanced editing features, and 4K video recording and playback. It incorporates an octa-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU Adreno 506 GPU and X9 LTE modem, which supports 4G+ speeds up to 150Mbps on uploads.
This marks a massive scale improvement in overall performance compared to the previous generation.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 435 and 425 chipsets are mid and low-tier processors. The former supports Full HD user interface with 60fps, 21MP Dual Image Sensor Processor (ISP), hybrid auto focus and X8 LTE modem with 4G+ support, which supports up to 300Mbps downlink and up to 100Mbps downlink speeds. It incorporates eight ARM Cortex-A53 processors and Adreno 505 GPU for graphics.
Finally, Snapdragon 425 has four ARM Cortex A53 cores, Adreno 308 GPU and X6 LTE modem with upload speeds up to 75Mbps. This chipsets supports up to 16MP camera with dual ISP, Full HD video recording and playback and HD screen with 60fps.
Separately, Qualcomm introduced a new wearable-ready chipset, Snapdragon 2100, with incremental upgrades. The new chipset enables sleek designs for wearables, longer battery life, smart sensing and always-connected experiences.
"With the introduction of the Snapdragon Wear platform and Snapdragon Wear 2100 SoC, Qualcomm Technologies is well-positioned to extend its progress in wearables technology by enabling sleek designs, long battery life, smart sensing, and always- connected experiences in the next generation of wearable devices," Raj Talluri, another senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm Technologies, said in the statement.
