Qualcomm is expanding its smartphone product lineup with a new chip aimed at upper mid-range smartphones. The company says its new Snapdragon 712 mobile platform is about 10 percent faster than the Snapdragon 710 and it includes technology that lets you charge a smartphone (or other device) a little faster.
For the most part the Snapdragon 710 and 712 are both 10nm chips with the same basic specs., including:
- Octa-core Kryo 360 processor
- Qualcomm Adreno 616 graphics
- Qualcomm Spectra 250 image signal processor
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X15 LTE Cat 15 down / Cat 13 modem up
Phones with the chips should be able to support up to a 32MP single camera or 20MP dual cameras and theoretical top LTE download speeds of 800 Mbps and top upload speeds of 150 Mbps.
But there are a few key differences:
- The Snapdragon 712 CPU runs at up to 2.3 GHz rather than 2.2 GHz for the Snapdragon 710.
- The platform supports Quick Charge 4+ rather than Quick Charge 4.
- There’s support for Qualcomm’s Signal Boost adaptive antenna tuning.
- Bluetooth audio should work better thanks to Qualcomm TrueWireless Stereo Plus and Broadcast Audio technology.
Broadcast Audio technology means you can send Bluetooth audio from a phone to multiple devices at once for synchronized playback, while TrueWireless Stereo Plus helps with reduced power consumption and better sound when listening to truly wireless earbuds that use Qualcomm’s QCC5100 platform.
Meanwhile, the upgrade to QuickCharge 4+ means you should be able to charge a device up to 15 percent more quickly while generating less heat and wasting less energy.
I can hardly wait for these to become commonplace because we’ve been at 14nm for too long. I read elsewhere that the 760 will be 8mn.