Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 and Snapdragon 617 announced for mid-range devices

Close on the heels of the Snapdragon 820 SoC announcement, Qualcomm has gone ahead and announced two new chipsets for the mid-range devices. Commercial devices sporting the Snapdragon 617 are expected to come out by end of 2015 whereas those sporting the Snapdragon 430 SoC are expected to release by Q2 2016.

The Snapdragon 430 and Snapdragon 617 will bring advances in the multi-media segment as well as connectivity for mid-range mobile phones.
The Snapdragon 617 and 430 will come with ARM Cortex A53 CPUs in octa-core configurations. The Snapdragon 617 has the octa-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz and the Snapdragon 430 has the octa-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz.

The Snapdragon 430 will come with X6 LTE with Cat 4 downlink speeds of up to 150Mbps and Cat 5 uplink speeds of 75Mbps. The camera support for Snapdragon 430 has got a big boost, with support for dual-camera configurations going up to 21MP sensors.
On the graphics front, the 430 will come with Adreno 505 GPU supporting OpenGL ES3.1, Android Extension Pack and OpenCL 2.0

The Snapdragon 617 comes with integrated X8 LTE modem with support for Cat 7 download speeds of 300Mbps and upload speeds going up to 100Mbps. It also shares the same software advances, dual-ISP and camera architecture of the Snapdragon 620 and 618.

“As smartphones and tablets continue to spread to all corners of the globe, we recognize that users are becoming more discerning in what they want,” said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “The introduction of these new processors is a clear indication that we are listening to the needs of our customers who want ever improving cameras, faster connectivity, and better battery life across all available price points.”

Both the chipsets are also expected to support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0. Quick Charge 3.0 is the third generation of this technology and is the first of its kind to employ Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV). This is a new algorithm developed by Qualcomm to allow portable devices the ability to determine what power level to request at any point in time for optimum power transfer, while maximizing efficiency.

Using Quick Charge 3.0 you can charge a phone from zero to 80 percent in about 35 minutes compared to conventional mobile devices without Quick Charge that may typically require almost an hour and a half.