Snapdragon 690

© Qualcomm.

Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 690 is the first SoC in its 6-series chips to get support for 5G — although it’ll only support the slower sub-6GHz versions of 5G, not the faster mmWave standard. The new Snapdragon 690 also promises a variety of other improvements over the previous 6-series chips. Qualcomm says it’ll offer 20 percent better CPU performance and 60 percent faster graphics rendering compared to the Snapdragon 675. But the addition of 5G support — by way of a new Snapdragon X51 modem — is particularly important for the broader adoption of 5G, given that the company’s 6-series chips tend to show up in midrange and budget phones, like those from HMD’s Nokia, Motorola, and LG. Finally, the Snapdragon 690 will support 120Hz displays for faster refresh rates, along with 4K HDR video capture (both a first for the 6-series). The Snapdragon 690 will also enable up to 192-megapixel cameras on midtier devices.

⇨ Circuit Breaker, Evan Ackerman, “Qualcomm launches new Snapdragon 690 processor to add 5G to budget phones.”