Skip to main content

Qualcomm targets ‘premium midrange’ phones with the Snapdragon 710

Qualcomm wants to make midrange phones a little more high tech. The company announced the creation of the 700-series earlier this year and now it’s unveiling the first chip in that new series — the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710.

The Snapdragon 710 is a whole lot more than just a slightly more powerful 600-series chip. It’s aimed at bringing some of the features from the 800 series — like improved security and artificial intelligence — to a cheaper chip that could make its way to some of the so-called “premium midrange” phones to be launched this year.

Recommended Videos

The Qualcomm 710 represents a number of “firsts” for Qualcomm, outside of the 800-series. Apart from the Snapdragon 845, it’s the first chip to be built on the 110-nanometer process. It also features a third-generation Kryo CPU and an Adreno 6-series GPU.

Under the hood, the Snapdragon 710 represents a modest performance boost over the current 600-series flagship, the Snapdragon 660. According to Qualcomm, with the Kryo 360 CPU, the chip offers a performance boost of up to 20 percent compared to the Snapdragon 660, while saving up to 40 percent of power during 4K video playback and mobile gaming. That is pretty impressive for a so-called midrange chip.

There are other things that make the chip decidedly better than the Snapdragon 660 too. For example, the chip boasts a Spectra 250 image signal processor, which is aimed at reducing image noise, image stabilization, and even performing active depth sensing — a feature that may lead to more secure facial recognition on midrange phones. The Spectra 250 ISP supports single-sensor cameras up to 32 megapixels, and dual-sensor cameras up to 20 megapixels.

Of course, none of this really matters if the chip doesn’t make its way into real-world phones — and while we’re certain it will, no phones using the tech have been announced just yet. Still, Qualcomm says it’s working with partners on deploying the new processor, and we expect to see phones announced with the new chip over the next few months, if not sooner.

The release of the Snapdragon 710 highlights the rise of the all-important “premium midrange” phone. As flagship phones, like the iPhone X, get more expensive, customers are looking for devices that offer flagship features at a lower price. That is likely where phones with the Snapdragon 710 will come in.

Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…
Samsung is going all-in on Snapdragon chips for the Galaxy S25
Samsung Galaxy S24 in Marble Gray standing on park bench.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 series rumor mill has been turbulent, and that's putting it lightly. An unbelievable amount of information has emerged about this phone, but one debate that was never settled is whether it would use the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip or the Exynos 2400 chip. Now we have an answer thanks to leaked benchmarks: it's all Snapdragon, all the way.

The most recent Galaxy S25 Geekbench results show a score of 2,986 single-core and 9,355 multi-core, a base frequency of 3.53GHz, and two separate processing clusters. The first has six cores clocked at 3.53GHz, and the second has two cores clocked at 4.47GHz, according to Tarun Vats on X.

Read more
People are already talking about the next big Snapdragon chip
Chiplet render of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite.

We’ve barely been introduced to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, and only a few phones with the chip have been released so far, but that hasn’t stopped chatter about a new version. Talk of a Snapdragon 8s Elite processor has been circulating for a short time, and now it has been linked to a new smartphone from Xiaomi that's expected sometime in early 2025.

Qualcomm’s confusing nomenclature makes understanding the Snapdragon 8s Elite’s power and position in the range difficult. It will apparently not match or exceed the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s ability, and instead fit in between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, according to a well-known industry commentator on the Chinese social network Weibo. Android Central notes that this space is currently filled by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, indicating the speculation may not be accurate.

Read more
How I made my Android tablet better than a Windows laptop
OnePlus Pad 2 used as a wireless Windows monitor, kept in front of a Keychron K2V2 mechanical keyboard and Logitech MX Master 3S on a table.

Roughly two years ago, I argued how almost every company making Android devices wants an ecosystem like Apple, but they just can't have it! Two years later, I still feel the same, even though brands have landscaped their ecosystems to present better cross-device connectivity (an essence of ecosystems).

However, brands haven't been able to overcome the detachment between Android and Windows yet, which has especially alienated productivity-oriented devices like big and powerful Android tablets from realizing their full potential.

Read more