Today there are a very few device manufacturers, like Huawei, who make their own chipset. The majority of the players source it from Qualcomm or Mediatek. Just a few days back Huawei had launched its latest budget smartphone Honor 5C in India which was powered by Kirin 650 Processor that was developed in-house by the company.
The processor is the heart of any smartphone and today we look into how does Kirin 650 compare against Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 652. Both the chipsets are known for their performance in mid-range segment.
Inhouse Chipset vs sourced chipset
There is no doubt that buying chipsets from outside vendors can reduce costs and shorten the research and development process for handset manufacturers; however, this also limits a platform’s functionality. Full customization is not possible if a company relies on outside vendors, who produce fixed products with fixed capabilities. By making in-house chipset, like Kirin 650, Huawei brings in invocation and increase the operational efficiency in their smartphones. Honor 5C is a perfect example of that.
The Snapdragon 652 has 4x ARM Cortex A72 cores paired with 4x A53 cores in big.LITTLE technology architecture. On the other , Kirin 650, is an octa-core setup based on the ARM big.LITTLE technology with 4 x Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and 4 x Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz. But the major difference lies in the fabrication process. Kirin 650 is fabricated by a 16nm FinFET process as compared to the 28nm HPm of Snapdragon 652.
How is Kirin 650 different?
The 16nm FinFET process leads to multiple reductions in energy loss, multiple increases in speed and all-round solutions to lagging, slowness, and heat build-up. The Kirin 650 also comes with silicon-chip level protection. There is a dedicated security module within the silicon chip that ensures user security, handling key information like fingerprints, keypad, and voice.
Also, it makes the processor faster to provide lightning-fast performance compared with previous-generation 28 nm chipsets. Four 2.0 GHz high-performance cores and four 1.7 GHz lower-performances high-efficiency cores make sure that a user gets 65% increase in performance and 40% decrease in power consumption from his device.
On the gaming front, Powerful Mali-T830 GPU ensures seamless gaming experience with 100% increase in GPU performance compared with previous-generation Kirin 620.
As a value add Kirin 650 comes with the “intelligent awareness” i5 co-processor as well. It is a low power consuming unit that assists the main processors to run certain complex calculations to reduce the CPU scheduling and occupation. It also houses the self-developed SLR-level Prime ISP which helps adjust dynamic range and supports hybrid focus technology which reportedly helps take better pictures with your smartphone.
Most of the mobile consumers face issue with connectivity. To address this issue Huawei has incorporated dual antennas system in the Kirin 650 chipset that automatically switch to the Antenna with the best signal to prevent dropped calls or no coverage symbol on phones.
Which device is based on Kirin 650?
Honor 5C with a price tag of just Rs 10,999 runs on Kirin 650. It has a 13-megapixel primary camera with f2.0 Aperture and LED flash on the rear and an 8-megapixel front shooter for selfies. The rear camera is capable of clicking amazing landscapes, architecture, low light pictures and just about any kind of photo you want to take. Even the front camera is really good and selfies will come out as real.Further, the phone has pro mode, time-lapse, slow-mo, pro-video, good food, light painting and many such high-end camera features which are rare to find in budget devices.
Along with the latest software, the Honor 5C also offers the latest operating system – the Android Marshmallow based EMUI 4.1, thus offering maximum App compatibility. Due to Android Marshmallow, the Honor 5C offers smoother performance as well.The EMUI 4.1 is quite simple and user-friendly. It doesn’t have any app drawer, meaning every app installed on the phone is placed on the home screen as a standalone app or as a part of a folder.
5C has a huge 3000 mAh battery as well. The humongous battery allows Honor 5C to offer one and half days backup even for the heavy users whose life revolves around their smartphones. With average usage getting two days of power back will never be an issue.