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Two years ago, Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon 675 for mid-range smartphones. Now the company is back with its successor. The chip design company today announced the Snapdragon 678 for the mid-range market.
Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 678 will offer “general performance improvements, high-speed connections for sophisticated photo and video capture, and immersive entertainment experiences. We are positioned to support OEMs in delivering the next generation of devices with on-demand performance and features, ”said Kedar Kondap, vice president of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. fast speeds through reliable connections and a long-lasting battery for consumers around the world. “
The Snapdragon 678 is very similar to the two-year-old Snapdragon 675. It features the same Kyro 460 CPU and Adreno 612 GPU architecture, but the CPU cores now max out at 2.2GHz. Qualcomm also said it has tweaked the Adreno 612 GPU to increase performance, but did not specify whether changes were made to the core count or core frequencies. Both chips are also manufactured in an 11nm manufacturing process.
Where users can see the biggest performance gains is with photography and videography. With the Specta 250L ISP and third-generation Qualcomm AI Engine, device manufacturers can add support for features like portrait mode, low-light shooting, unlimited 4K video capture, and more. The ISP itself supports image capture from two cameras up to 16MP resolution with zero shutter lag, or single camera up to 25MP with ZSL.
In terms of connectivity, the Snapdragon 678 comes with the Snapdragon X12 4G LTE modem that can boost download speeds of up to 600Mbps and upload speeds of up to 150Mbps. It also supports features like Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), which can increase capacity by taking advantage of license-free 5 GHz spectrum. The modem does not support connection to next-generation 5G networks, nor does it support next-generation Wi-Fi or Bluetooth technologies, as support for these technologies is still limited to higher-level Qualcomm products.
With the second half of 2019 being dominated by 5G-capable devices, including Google’s latest Pixel 5, we may see fewer and fewer non-5G-capable devices on the market. Still, Qualcomm saw fit to introduce the Snapdragon 678, which will likely be featured in devices abroad and at the lower end of the spectrum.
You can see the full specifications of the Snapdragon 678 here.
