MediaTek has launched yet another mid-range processor—MediaTek Helio P65—for lower mid-range smartphones, and it’s positioned below the Helio P70 which is used in phones like the Realme 3 (Review), OPPO F11, and the OPPO F11 Pro. The Taiwanese chipset brand claims that the MediaTek Helio P65 offers faster gaming performance as well as twice the AI processing performance when compared to the previous-generation Helio processor. More importantly, the Helio P65 also brings support for 48MP camera sensors such as the Sony IMX586, Samsung ISOCELL GM1, and Samsung ISOCELL GM2.
MediaTek Helio P65 Features, Specs
The Helio P65 uses a combination of two high-performance ARM Cortex-A75 CPU cores clocked at 2.0GHz, six power-efficient ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores, and ARM Mali-G52 2EEMC2 GPU clocked at 820MHz. The chipset is compatible with single-channel LPDDR4X RAM (4GB or 8GB 1800MHz) and eMMC 5.1 storage chips. The company hasn’t revealed the fabrication process that’s used to manufacture the Helio P65, but we suspect it to be TSMC’s 12nm FinFET process.
In terms of imaging, the Helio P65 supports either dual-16MP camera setup or a single 48MP (quad-bayer with 4-in-1 pixel binning mode) camera sensor. The company still isn’t offering 4K video recording with the Helio P65. Video recording quality tops out at either QHD 2K at 30fps or Full HD 1080p at 60fps. There’s EIS (electronic image stabilization), RSC (rolling shutter compensation), MFNR (multi-frame noise reduction), H.264, and H.265 HEVC video encoding. The built-in ISP also offers Face Unlock, in combination with onboard NeuroPilot AI processing.
In terms of connectivity, the MediaTek Helio P65 features improved and accurate GPS (A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, GNSS), dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, Dual-SIM Dual-4G LTE (with Dual-VoLTE, ViLTE, and WoWiFi), FM Radio, and USB Type-C port. We expect this chipset to be used in low-end and lower-mid-range smartphones that will be released later this year.
MediaTek Helio P65 Brings Performance Improvements
The company is claiming that the Helio P65 chipset offers much better gaming experience even with low-cost smartphones. There are claims of large L3 cache memory and faster general performance, thanks to newer, Cortex-A75 CPU cores compared to Cortex-A73 CPU cores. The company’s CorePilot engine is claimed to offer sustained and reliable performance even with longer gaming sessions. The GPU supports up to QHD resolution screens.
The chipset also features Voice on Wakeup for improved voice recognition system for AI-powered digital voice assistants. It even features separate audio channels for voice calls, media, and voice commands. Speaking of AI, the MediaTek P65 features 2x faster AI performance compared to previous-generation MediaTek processors and 30% faster AI performance compared to processors from other brands. This also means it can be faster at things like bokeh mode, object recognition, Google Lens, scene detection, and background segmentation.
The company also talked a lot about the MediaTek Helio P65’s global positioning engine’s (GPS) accuracy. It is claimed to work indoors, undergrounds, and tunnels. It can also understand orientation as well as direction.
Although the Helio P65 has faster high-performance cores compared to Cortex-A73 CPU cores inside the Helio P70, there are only two of those, so single-core CPU performance should be higher but the all-core CPU performance could be lower. The Helio P65 will compete with rival chipsets such as Snapdragon 632, Snapdragon 660, Kirin 810, and Exynos 7904.
