Alongside the Snapdragon 720G chipset, which will enable improved gaming experiences in the sub-Rs. 15,000 price bracket, Qualcomm has today also announced two new budget-centric chipsets. The Snapdragon 460 chipset upgrades on the Snapdragon 450 whereas Snapdragon 662 comes as an upgrade over the very popular Snapdragon 660 chipset. It’s sitting under the Snapdragon 665 though in terms of nomenclature.
Snapdragon 662
With the Snapdragon 662 chipset, Qualcomm has focused primarily on camera and AI improvements. This means you can expect your sub-Rs 10,000 smartphones to handle a lot more tasks and capture stunning pictures, thanks to a new ISP.
Snapdragon 662 is based on Qualcomm’s 11nm architecture and features the Kryo 260 CPU cores (4 Cortex-A73 cores clocked at up to 2GHz and 4 Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 1.8GHz) onboard. It’s coupled with the Adreno 610 GPU (found in the Snapdragon 665), 3rd-Gen AI Engine, and Hexagon 683 DSP.
This chipset supports up to triple-camera configurations and 48MP cameras, thanks to the new Qualcomm Spectra 340T ISP. It also enables support for HEIF file format and smooth switching between the lenses. The chipmaker says this is a first in a 6-series chipset. The Snapdragon 662 also supports Quick Charge 3.0.
On the connectivity front, Snapdragon 662 features the new Snapdragon X11 LTE modem that supports 2-carrier aggregation, 2×2 MIMO, and 256-QAM modulation. This means you will get download speeds up to 390Mbps and upload speeds up to 150Mbps with this new chipset.
Alongwith the Snapdragon 720G, both the Snapdragon 460 and Snapdragon 662 are also the first to support India’s NAVIC satellite navigation system.
Snapdragon 460
Qualcomm has made massive strides in its chipset technology and it’s now tricking down over to its new 4-series chipset. Snapdragon 460 comes with significant improvements in the camera, connectivity, and AI department.
The biggest upgrade in the Snapdragon 460 will have to be the change in architecture. It has now adopted the big.LITTLE architecture (Kryo 240) and includes 4 performance cores (Cortex-A73) for the first time ever. The other 4 cores are backed by the Cortex-A55. This chipset is based on the 11nm architecture.
Snapdragon 460 also includes the Adreno 610 GPU, which is a massive jump over Adreno 506 found in the Snapdragon 450. It will result in 70% performance gains, as per the chipmaker. There’s also the Hexagon 683 DSP, which is another first for 4-series chipsets, and supports Hexagon Vector extensions and TensorFlow Lite.
You can see Snapdragon 460 as a slightly underpowered variant of the Snapdragon 662, well, because it features the same architecture, DSP, and the ISP. This chipset includes a Spectra 340 ISP with support for triple-camera modules, 25MP photo capture, and dual 16MP photo-capture. Even your sub-Rs. 8,000 phone will be able to capture some stunning pictures with this chipset in tow.
Snapdragon 460 chipset also includes the Snapdragon X11 LTE modem that provides you download speeds up to 390 Mbps and uploads up to 150 Mbps.
In its official press release, Qualcomm says that we can expect smartphones powered by Snapdragon 460 and Snapdragon 662 to arrive in the market by the end of 2020. Though that sounds late, I expect Realme or Xiaomi to pounce on the opportunity and launch new budget phones with these chipsets in tow.
