Qualcomm’s New Snapdragon 690 Brings 5G To Affordable Phones

Qualcomm has today launched a new chipset dubbed Snapdragon 690, which is intended to bring 5G to budget smartphones in addition to performance improvement over its predecessor.

It is the first chipset in the Snapdragon 6-series to get the next-generation connectivity feature.

It is an octa-core processor built on 8nm architecture with 2 x 2 GHz Kryo 560 ARM Cortex-A77 CPU cores and 6 x 1.7 GHz Kryo 560 ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores. The chipset features Adreno 619L GPU.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 comes with a Snapdragon X51 modem to offer 5G support. However, it only supports the sub-6 5G network, which is considered slower than its counterpart mmWave network.

The chipset brings 20% better CPU performance improvement and 60% faster graphics rendering as compared to Snapdragon 675.

“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.

Other features of the newly announced Snapdragon 690 include support for 120Hz displays, cameras up to 192MP, 4K HDR video recording, QuickCharge 4+ technology, WiFi 6, and more.

This is the first time we’re seeing these features in a chipset intended for budget smartphones. We can expect Snapdragon 690 to be featured in smartphones priced under $500.

Qualcomm has said that smartphone makers like Nokia HMD, TCL, LG, and Motorola have plans to launch smartphones with Snapdragon 690 later this year.

While the flagship segment has already adopted 5G, Snapdragon 690 will help OEMs to adopt 5G in budget smartphones.