Skip to main content

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 690 processor brings 5G to midrange phones

 

Qualcomm is amping up its midrange 6-series of chips. The company has taken the wraps off of the new Snapdragon 690 processor, which is now the highest-end offering in the 6-series, and is aimed at delivering some premium features to inexpensive phones.

Recommended Videos

Of course, there’s one premium feature in particular to note here — support for 5G. That makes the Snapdragon 690 the first platform in the 6-series to offer 5G support, meaning that much cheaper phones could soon support 5G.

“Driving the expansion of 5G into the Snapdragon 6-series has the potential to make 5G accessible to more than 2 billion smartphone users around the world,” said Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm Incorporated.

Over the next year or so, 5G in general is expected to become more mainstream. Not only are carriers continuing to deploy their 5G networks, but manufacturers are launching more affordable 5G phones, too.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Snapdragon 690 offers other features, too, and many of them are firsts for the 6-series. For example, the Snapdragon 690 has support for 4K HDR, 120Hz displays, and more. These features aren’t commonly found on midrange phones, but they will likely trickle down to cheaper phones over the next few years.

The Snapdragon 690 also offers some performance upgrades compared to the previous-generation Snapdragon 675. For example, you’ll get up to a 20% performance boost, along with support for Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4.0 and Wi-Fi 6. While it definitely isn’t as powerful as Qualcomm’s higher-end chips, it does support some of the same premium features, which is good news for midrange phone buyers.

Qualcomm has also announced partners that are expected to release phones that support the Snapdragon 690. Notably, the company says that HMD Global, LG, Motorola, Sharp, TCL, and Wingtech are all expected to launch phones featuring the Snapdragon 690. There is no timeline for any of these devices. Current-gen phones that use 6-series chips include the likes of the Motorola Moto G series, along with the Nokia 6.2, which comes with a lower-end Snapdragon 636. It’s possible that follow-ups to these devices may offer a Snapdragon 690, though only time will tell.

According to Qualcomm, devices that offer the Snapdragon 690 will arrive in the second half of 2020.

Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…
This new Snapdragon chip will transform AI on cheaper phones
A rendered image showing a phone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor.

Qualcomm is capitalizing on the increased interest around AI with its latest smartphone chip announcement. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor supports generative AI capabilities and several large language models (LLMs) to help midrange devices compete with their flagship counterparts, which have seen AI increasingly used as a major selling point.

Qualcomm’s general manager of mobile handsets, Chris Patrick, confirmed the company’s intention with the chip in the press release, saying:

Read more
Qualcomm’s new smartphone chip will make cheap 5G phones better than ever
Qualcomm Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 silicon inside a phone.

Qualcomm is pushing a new entry-level smartphone chip into its arsenal, and this one is expected to appear in phones toward the end of 2024. The silicon in question is the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2, which is a slightly watered-down version of the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 processor.

The two most promising aspects are faster connectivity and improved camera capabilities for budget Android phones. First, the 5G-ready chip promises downlink speeds of up to 1Gbps, which is much faster than the 4G-only silicon available in the comparable price bracket.

Read more
There’s an unheard-of processor inside this fun gaming phone
The back of the Redmagic 9S Pro.

Redmagic has announced the global version of the Redmagic 9S Pro gaming smartphone, and inside is a processor you may not be familiar with. It’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which you’ll absolutely know, but it’s the “Leading Version” of the chip.

The what? It turns out that this is the name Redmagic has given to an overclocked version of the already very powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and it seems we’ve already seen it under a different name and on a different phone.

Read more