Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 480 SoC, the first in the 400-series to sport 5G connectivity. There has been a lot of hype around
5G technology becoming mainstream in India. But with the technology still fetching a premium in the smartphone market, and only featuring in mid-range and flagship smartphones, the adoption has naturally been slow-paced. Now, Qualcomm is shaking things up by introducing 5G to the Snapdragon 400 series platform, meant for low-cost Android smartphones.
The Snapdragon 480 5G was teased back in August at IFA 2020, and almost four-months after, we have some vital details to share. With an octa-core Kryo 460 CPU and the Adreno 619 GPU, the Snapdragon 480 5G also marks a big leap in raw performance. Qualcomm claims 2x bump in CPU and GPU performance and a 70 per cent improvement in AI performance.
Despite being a budget SoC, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G doesn’t cheap out on 5G network support. It supports both mmWave and Sub-6GHz bands for 5G connectivity thanks to the Snapdragon X51 5G modem. The mmWave support is exclusive to Qualcomm models and is the real driver behind the insane internet speeds 5G promises.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G Specifications
The Snapdragon 480 5G is the first in the 400-series to be built on an 8nm manufacturing process. The Kryo 460 CPU cluster includes ARM-Cortex A76 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and ARM-Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.8GHz, which is quite a leap from the Snapdragon 460. The Adreno 619 seems to be the same as the one on the
Snapdragon 750G that will reportedly power the
Mi 10i launching tomorrow.
All this allows the Snapdragon 480 5G to not only support high-intensity 5G applications, but also high-refresh rate displays upto 120Hz at FHD resolution, UFS 2.2 storage and LPDDR4X RAM. The chipset also includes support for QuickCharge4+, dual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, as well as India’s navIC satellite navigation system.
Smartphones powered by Snapdragon 480 5G
Qualcomm said the first batch of smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 480 5G will launch later in January. Oppo and HMD Global have been quoted to be among the first to launch smartphones powered by the budget 5G SoC.
