Qualcomm unveils new Snapdragon 480 5G chipset for budget phones

In late November 2020, Motorola launched new-generation Moto G 5G with Snapdragon 750G for Rs 20,999 in India, making it the most affordable 5G mobile. However, it is one of the only three (others being OnePlus Nord and Vivo V20 Pro) in the market that cost under Rs 32,000 to support high-speed Internet connectivity.

This year we will see phones costing less than Rs 15,000 with 5G support, as Qualcomm on Monday (January 4) announced the new Snapdragon 480 5G System-on-Chip (SoC).

“Qualcomm Technologies continues to accelerate 5G commercialization globally to make 5G smartphones more accessible, especially as people worldwide continue to connect remotely. The Snapdragon 480 5G Mobile Platform will exceed OEM’s and consumer’s expectations in delivering high- and mid-tier features at an affordable price,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies.

The new Snapdragon 480 comes integrated with Snapdragon X51 5G Modem-RF System to support mmWave and Sub-6 GHz 5G; Standalone (SA) and Non-standalone (NSA) modes, making it to support multiple 5G bands around the world.

Also, Snapdragon 480 5G supports the latest wireless technology Wi-Fi 6.0 (8x8 sounding with multi-user MIMO), Bluetooth 5.1 in addition to dual-frequency GPS and NavIC (India) for accurate location positioning.

It will also significantly boost the performance of budget phones. It can clock a maximum CPU speed of 2.0 GHz. It comes paired with Qualcomm Adreno 619 GPU and Qualcomm Hexagon 686 processor, which promises to deliver up to 100% performance improvement in CPU and GPU, and up to 70% AI performance improvement compared to the previous generation.

Additionally, Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G SoC comes with Qualcomm Quick Charge 4 Plus technology. With this, the phone can charge from zero to 50% within 15 minutes of charging, and also it will ensure, the battery doesn't overheat. This is a great value addition to budget phones.

The new Snapdragon 480 5G promises to take photography to the next level with Qualcomm Spectra345 ISP – the first triple ISP in a 4 series. It will enable a phone to capture from all three cameras simultaneously. "Triple 13MP photo capture can deliver an image from the ultrawide, wide and telephoto camera all at once or capture triple 720p videos simultaneously," the company said.

We can expect the new phones with Snapdragon 480 5G chipset to hit stores by the end of March 2021.

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