Qualcomm introduces three successors to popular mid-range CPUs

Qualcomm has announced that it is releasing successors to three of its popular mid-range CPUs. These CPUs are all Snapdragon and each carry their own number: Snapdragon 653, 626, and 427.

In addition to the updates mentioned blow, Qualcomm has also enabled Quick Charge 3.0 to every new CPU across the board. With these new features, we expect to see Quick Charge make its way to even more low to mid-range devices.

Snapdragon 653

The Snapdragon 653 is an incremental upgrade over the 652 and offers a performance improvement of up to 10% with twice the amount of supported RAM at 8GB now. The 653 uses a new X9 LTE model which is an improvement over the X8 LTE modem found in the 652. This new modem brings better support for VoLTE and Ultra HD Voice.

In addition to these minor updates, the Snapdragon 653 also brings support for Qualcomm’s “Clear Sight dual camera technology”. It’ll be interesting to know if we’ll see more phones bring dual-camera setups.

Snapdragon 626

The Snapdragon 626 is also an incremental upgrade when compared to the 625 with a 10% performance increase. And much like the 653, the 626 will also feature an X9 LTE modem, as well as support for Qualcomm’s Clear Sight dual-setup camera as well.

Snapdragon 427

The Snapdragon 427 is getting an X9 LTE modem as well, which is quite a step up from the X6 LTE modem found in the Snapdragon 425. Likewise, we also see the 427 gain support for Clear Sight, just like the previous two CPUs. It looks like Qualcomm is really set on this dual-camera support, which in turn could encourage more mid-range devices to use dual-camera setups.

However, we only have to wonder how a dual-camera setup on a mid to low-range device would compare to a dual-camera (or even single camera) setup on a flagship device. Perhaps a dual-camera setup could yield better photos at a lower cost to the manufacturer.

As for availability, the Snapdragon 653 and 626 become commercially available by the end of 2016 and the Snapdragon 427 will come out in early 2017. This means we can expect to start seeing new phones with these chips as early as Q1 of the upcoming year.

Via