Qualcomm and MediaTek pursue video and game fans with modified 5G chips



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Until COVID-19 cases began to spread worldwide, 2020 5G device sales estimates were universally robust, much higher than 2019, and on track to establish the next-generation cell standard as a must-have feature. for smart phones. Although the pandemic has cooled retail sales in some countries, all signs continue to point to a strong uptake of 5G in China, so it is not surprising that key chip makers Qualcomm and MediaTek are unveiling new 5G-on-chip system solutions. (SoC) to conquer masses of new products. users.

The battle for Chinese customers has become a global issue for top chip and device manufacturers, as China’s massive population is simultaneously focused on specs and value. Over 366 million smartphones were sold in China in 2019, accounting for 27% of total global sales, and coordinated government planning has given the country an early lead in 5G deployments. In addition to local manufacturer and market leader Huawei, domestic and foreign brands use Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung chips to appeal to most Chinese users, while Apple iPhones focus largely, but not exclusively, on the upper end of the market.

If you followed Qualcomm’s December announcements of the Snapdragon 865 and 765 / 765G midrange, today’s recently announced Snapdragon 768G will seem like a pretty obvious alternative in the middle: an affordable all-in-one Android SoC with built-in 5G. In contrast to the 765G, the faster 768G Kyro 475 CPU cores jump from clock speeds of 2.4GHz to 2.8GHz for a 15% processing boost, the Adreno 620 GPU gains up to 15% faster performance In addition to the 765G’s 10% profit on the stock 765 and Adreno graphics driver updates are supported, the first for the Snapdragon 7 series.

As its “G” designation suggests, the Snapdragon 768G is designed to appeal to gamers, but the performance enhancements will benefit both high-bandwidth video and gaming. Unlike the 765G, which only supports 60Hz displays, the 768G supports 120Hz displays, closer to the 144Hz frame rate of the more expensive Snapdragon 865. If you look carefully at the specs, you will notice that Bluetooth has been removed from 5.0 on the 765G to 5.2 on the 768G, going one step beyond even the iconic Bluetooth 5.1 on the 865. That said, most of the other specs on the 768G are the same. than the 765G’s, including a built-in Snapdragon X52 5G modem with 3.7Gbps download and 1.6Gbps peak loads, plus the same fifth-generation artificial intelligence engine as before.

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For Qualcomm, which heavily markets its premium flagship-class chips, the Snapdragon 768G offers device makers a way to win customers who want high-end features but don’t want to pay for them. The first phone to use the new chip is the Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition, which looks like it should be expensive, but will actually sell for just 2,000 Chinese yuan ($ 282). That’s cheap enough to help 5G make more headway everywhere the phone launches, starting with sales in China on May 14.

MediaTek generally supplies low-to-mid-range smartphone makers, making Dimensity 1000+ something of a step forward for the company – another way to compete with Qualcomm’s luxury Snapdragon SoC without matching its full performance. Dimensity 1000+ builds heavily on the previously announced 1000, but adds support for 144Hz screen refresh rates, 4K HDR video quality enhancements, and HyperEngine enhancements to benefit gaming – multi-peripheral support, better network performance and processor power management.

On the 5G side, there is no change, but MediaTek continues to claim “best in class” energy efficiency due to the integrated 5G modem, more “super-fast” speeds thanks to carrier aggregation technology and dual SIM support. We are unlikely to see major improvements to the MediaTek or Qualcomm 5G components until 2021, when the Snapdragon X60 modem and corresponding MediaTek competitor are available.

Rumors suggest that the Dimensity 1000+ will appear first on the Z1 5G, a phone from iQoo, a gaming-focused subset of Vivo, which is sold primarily to customers in China and India. There’s no price yet for the Z1 5G, which will debut on May 19, but iQoo phones tend to be very affordable. Taken together, the new MediaTek and Qualcomm chips suggest that affordable gaming and high-frame-rate video performance are emerging as potential marketing spots for smartphone makers, though only time will tell whether the chips with specs are compatible with. these features end in enough popular phones to move the needle of the industry.

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