With the announcement of the new Qualcomm 215 the company sets aside the Snapdragon brand for the new platform (this may indicate, perhaps, that the manufacturer’s next chips will also fail to adopt the title) and now finally offers the 64-bit architecture for the cheapest smartphones, with a Cortex-A53 quad-core processor and speeds up to 1.3 GHz.
Qualcomm 215 can show performance improvements of up to 50% when compared to the previous Snapdragon 200 chips according to the manufacturer.
The company also highlights the new Adreno 308 GPU for the mobile platform, enabling up to 28% improvement in gaming performance when compared to the previous generation. This is the same GPU implemented in Snapdragon 425.
Dual Camera and Fast Charging
Other exciting news for cheap smartphones – and here we are talking about devices in the $ 100 range and below $ 600 – stands for dual rear camera support with sensors up to 8 MP + 8 MP or 13 MP + 13MP, allowing a leap in image quality for the most affordable models and letting the smartphone manufacturer choose between the lens set, which can be a common lens + telephoto or common + depth sensor.
The Qualcomm 215 platform also offers support for HD + (1560x720p) resolution, Hexagon DSP for increased audio efficiency and sensor information processing, plus Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) connectivity, VoLTE dual-SIM and NFC support.
Another innovation is the arrival of Qualcomm’s fast charging support for the cheapest smartphones. Although the technology is still Quick Charge 1.0, the implementation already allows the launch of future chipsets with support for higher speeds in the future.
Qualcomm 215 Platform (QM215): specifications
- Modem
- Modem Snapdragon X5 LTE
- Support for LTE Cat 4
- Downlink up to 150 Mbps LTE
- Uplink up to 50 Mbps LTE
- Qualcomm® Snapdragon ™ 2 × 10 MHz to 64-QAM
- Support for LTE Broadcast, Dual SIM Dual VoLTE
- Qualcomm® All-Mode LTE FDD, LTE TDD, WCDMA (DC-HSDPA, HSUPA), TD-SCDMA, EV-DO Rev. B, CDMA1x, TD-SCDMA and GSM / EDGE
- VoLTE with HD Voice and Ultra HD Voice (EVS)
- Calls via Wi-Fi with call continuity
- Connectivity
- Qualcomm® Wi-Fi Solutions
- Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b / g / n / ac with MU-MIMO
- USB 2.0
- Bluetooth 4.2
- Support for Near Field Communications (NFC)
- Camera
- Dual 12-bit Image Signal Processors
- Dual camera up to 8 MP, ZSL, 30 fps
- Single-camera up to 13 MP, ZSL, 30 fps
- Capture video up to 1080p with 30 fps
- Screen
- HD + 1560 × 720 (19.5: 9)
- Support for external display
- CPU & DSP
- 4x ARM Cortex A53
- Up to 1.3 GHz
- Made in 28nm process
- Qualcomm® Hexagon ™ DSP
- Memory
- LPDDR3
- Up to 672 MHz speed, 3 GB RAM
- eMMC 4.5
- SD 3.0 (UHS-I)
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According to Qualcomm itself, it is expected that the first smartphones equipped with the new Qualcomm 215 will be announced during the second half of 2019. More news should emerge in the coming months and TudoCelular will keep an eye on all the major news.