Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 700 series
Qualcomm's latest mobile processor will sit underneath the Snapdragon 845 but with plenty of promised power.
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, there's been a lot of focus around the premium offerings from Samsung via the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+, and Sony via the Xperia XZ2 and Xperia XZ2 Compact running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845.
There's little doubt that the premium handsets for 2018 will heavily utilise the 845, with Qualcomm itself noting that it expects "a number of other manufacturers to announce Snapdragon 845 products shortly" during its MWC 2018 press conference.
However, it's not the only processor game in town, with Qualcomm also announcing a new tier in its processor family with the Snapdragon 700 series.
The Snapdragon 700 is designed to wedge between the existing 600 series chipsets and the 845, with a claimed doubling of AI performance for machine learning applications and a 30% power efficiency boost over comparable 600 series SoCs. It's also being heavily pitched at improving camera capabilities in mid-range handsets.
Qualcomm's expectation is that it will be primarily used by Chinese OEMs looking to shift up their mid-range device strategies. "This was designed to meet the needs of many oems, especially in the China market," said Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon.
"The market is growing up; the mid and the high tier are moving faster than the low end," he said.
"What the 700 creates is an opportunity to capitalise on this, creating a premium experience. Not only for us, creating a higher performance chipset, but for OEMs."
The expectation is that we'll see actual handsets based on the 700 series in the second half of 2018.
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Image: Qualcomm