Snapdragon 690 5G Announced to Make 5G Even More Accessible to the Masses

Jun. 17, 2020

With today’sannouncementof the Snapdragon 690 5G, Qualcomm aims to bring 5G to even lower price brackets – under Rs. 20,000 if you talk about India. This chipset can be seen as a successor to Snapdragon 675, which can be found in theRedmi Note 7 Profrom earlier last year.

Snapdragon 690 5G: Specs and Features

Starting off with the basics, Snapdragon 690 5G features 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Kryo 560 CPU with clock speeds up to 2.0GHz. It’s a brand new CPU with the Cortex-A77 cores that have previously only been used aboard theSnapdragon 865. This is only the second chipset in Qualcomm’s portfolio to feature a 500-series Kryo core – the first is Snapdragon 865’s Kryo 585.

The company boasts that it deliversup to 20% performance improvementover its predecessor, which is great for mid-range users. It supports up to 8GB 1866MHz RAM.

The chipset also includes anew Adreno 619L GPUonboard, which sits above the Adreno 618 GPU that’s found on theSnapdragon 720Gand 730G mid-range chipsets. Qualcomm claims that it supports up to60% faster graphics renderingthan its predecessor. This means you can expect gaming performance better than (or on par) with its elder sibling.

The highlight of the Snapdragon 690, well, is 5G connectivity. Qualcomm has baked anew Snapdragon X51 5G Modem-RF systeminto this chipset. It supports both standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) networks, offering download speeds up to 2.5 Gbps and upload speeds up to 660Mbps. It supports most global bands and multi-SIM functionality but lacks support for mmWave networks. Snapdragon 690 supports only sub-6GHz 5G networks.

For a quick reference, the Snapdragon X50 was the first-ever 5G modem launched by Qualcomm and it was an optional upgrade on the Snapdragon 855 series. Snapdragon X52 modem is baked into Snapdragon 765G. Thus, Snapdragon X51 fits in the middle of the two.

Snapdragon 690 is the first-ever Snapdragon 6-series mobile platform to support up to 120Hz display.

Now, let’s talk about the things that would interest you the most. Snapdragon 690 5G supports up to120Hz Full-HD+ displaywith HDR10+, up to 192MP photo capture, true 10-bit 4K HDR video recording (thanks to theSpectra 355L ISPon board), and slow-mo videos at 720p @ 240 FPS. The 5th-Gen Qualcomm AI Engine and Hexagon 692 onboard enables smart camera/ video and other AI voice features such as multiple voice assistants, far-field detection, and more. The chipset supports indigenous satellite navigation systemNavICas well.

The company’s OEM partners like HMD Global, LG, Motorola, and several others are already working on devices powered by the Snapdragon 690. We can expect the Nokia 7.3 or thenext LG Velvet phoneto be backed by this chipset.