Qualcomm is updating its Snapdragon 600 series of chips for mid-range smartphones. The new Snapdragon 670 is an octa-core processor that the company says offers up to a 15 percent boost in general performance and and 180 percent improvement in certain artificial intelligence tasks when compared to a Snapdragon 660 processor.
Here are some of the key specs for the new processor (or mobile platform, as Qualcomm calls its Snapdragon chips these days):
- Octa-core Kryo 360 CPU with 2 x 2 GHz high-performance CPU cores + 6 x 1.7 GHz efficiency cores
- Adreno 615 graphics
- Hexagon 685 DSP
- Spectra 250 ISP with support for up to 25MP single cameras, 16MP dual cameras, and 4K video capture and 30 fps
- Support for FHD+ displays
- 802.11ac WiFI with top speeds of 867 Mbps
- Bluetooth 5
- Snapdragon X12 LTE modem with top speeds of 600 Mbps down, 150 MBps
- Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ support
The Snapdragon 670 chip is already available, and Qualcomm says we should start to see devices powered by the processor later in 2018.
I am really looking forward to that 15% increase in general performance. I guess Qualcomm is the Intel of smartphones. They give top-tier features to the mid-tier when they can only increase the CPU performance by a small amount. It’s nice for people who are buying their first phone, but it is no reason to upgrade. If you phone is not lasting more than 4 years, you picked the wrong one (same for tablets, laptops and all technology).
It’s honestly software updates that are the issue nowadays.
We’ll start to see them as soon as companies stop their love affair with the 625 that we still see new devices pop out with.