Qualcomm introduces the Snapdragon 678 for mid-range smartphones

Two years ago, Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon 675 for mid-range smartphones. Now the company is back with its successor. The chip design company today announced the Snapdragon 678 for the mid-range market.

Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 678 will deliver “overall performance upgrades, high-speed connections for sophisticated photo and video capture, and immersive entertainment experiences. We are positioned to support OEMs in delivering the next generation of devices with in-demand features and performance,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Snapdragon 678 brings advanced mobile capabilities for daily entertainment at lightning-fast speeds over reliable connections and long-lasting battery life for consumers worldwide.”

The Snapdragon 678 is very similar to the two-year-old Snapdragon 675. It features the same Kyro 460 CPU architecture and Adreno 612 GPU, but the CPU cores now max out at 2.2GHz. Qualcomm also said it has tweaked the Adreno 612 GPU to increase performance, but didn’t specify if changes were made to the core count or core frequencies. Both chips are also fabricated on an 11nm manufacturing process.

Where users might see the most performance gains is with photography and videography. With the Specta 250L ISP and 3rd generation Qualcomm AI Engine, device makers can add support for features like portrait mode, low-light capture, limitless 4K video capture, and more. The ISP itself supports image capture from two cameras at up to 16MP resolution with zero shutter lag, or from a single camera at up to 25MP with ZSL.

In terms of connectivity, the Snapdragon 678 comes with the Snapdragon X12 4G LTE modem that can push download speeds up to 600 Mbps and upload speeds up to 150 Mbps. It also supports features like Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), which can increase capacity by tapping into the unlicensed 5GHz spectrum. The modem does not support connecting to next-gen 5G networks nor does it support next-gen Wi-Fi or Bluetooth technologies, as support for these technologies is still limited to Qualcomm’s more premium-tier products.

With the latter half of 2019 being dominated by devices that support 5G, including Google’s latest Pixel 5, we may see fewer and fewer devices that don’t support 5G hit the market. Even still, Qualcomm saw fit to introduce the Snapdragon 678, which will likely be included in devices overseas and in the lower end of the spectrum.

You can view the full specs for the Snapdragon 678 right here.

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