Qualcomm has unveiled four new chipsets, Snapdragon 625, 435 and 425 for smartphones, and a Snapdragon Wear 2100 for Android Wear smartwatches.
While manufacturers are about to launch smartphones running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, Qualcomm has announced four new chipsets, Snapdragon 625, 435 and 425 for smartphones and a Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset for Android Wear-based smartwatches. While the smartphone chipsets come with big improvements over their predecessors, the Snapdragon Wear 2100 is claimed to be tailor-made for Android Wear, and will allow for thinner smartwatches.
Snapdragon 625: It is probably one of the mid-range chipsets we have been waiting for. This chipset is built on power-efficient 14nm fabrication process, which Qualcomm claims to consume up to 35 percent less power than Snapdragon 617 SoC. It allows for eight Cortex-A53 cores that can be clocked above 2GHz paired with Adreno 506 GPU. The chipset comes with support for 4K video (HEVC and AVC codecs) and camera up to 24-megapixels.
The Snapdragon 625 SoC also features Cat. 7 LTE X9 modem with download and upload speeds of up to 300Mbps and 150Mbps respectively and support for Quick Charge 3.0. However, the only limitation is display support for up to 1080p (30fps) and 1,900 x 1,200pixels (60fps). Smartphones running on Snapdragon 625 SoC can be expected in the second half of the year.
Snapdragon 435: Built on the older 28nm fabrication process, it has eight Cortex-A53 cores that can be clocked at 1.4GHz paired with Adreno 505 GPU. The chipset offers display support up to 1080p (60fps). It comes with Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Quick Charge 3.0 and Cat. 7 LTE X8 modem support with download and upload speeds up to 300Mbps and 100Mbps, respectively. It also comes with camera support for up to 21-megapixels and video recording support for up to 1080p (HEVC and AVC codec).
Snapdragon 425: Although there is a small different in the chipset’s model number, there’s a big difference in the hardware. This SoC comes with a Cortex-A53 quad-core processor built on 28nm fabrication process and clock speeds of up to 1.4GHz paired with Adreno 308. While the display support is capped at 1,280x800pixels (60fps) and camera resolution up to 16-megapixels, it has max video recording support up to 1080p.
Using older Cat. 4 X6 modem, it can achieve maximum download and upload speeds of up to 150Mbps and 75Mbps respectively. The Snapdragon 425 chipset also gets support for Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Quick Charge 2.0.
Snapdragon Wear 2100: Dubbed as Snapdragon Wear, it is a brand new platform for wearables, which Qualcomm claims to bring significant improvements over the current Snapdragon 400. The chipset will be 30 percent smaller and offer up to 25 percent battery boost compared to the Snapdragon 400 SoC.
It packs a quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU with clock speed up to 1.2GHz, Adreno 304 GPU and support for display resolutions up to 640x480pixels (60Hz). The chipset will be available in Bluetooth/Wi-Fi only and the other one with 4G LTE cellular connectivity. It will also support GPS, NFC and Quick Charge 2.0. Smartwatches running on Snapdragon Wear 2100 are expected to launch in later half of the year.
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