Qualcomm has introduced a new processor, Snapdragon 710 Mobile Platform, built on 10nm process technology. The Snapdragon 710 is the first mobile platform in the new 700-tier portfolio and the company claims that it will help bring premium features to the mid-range smartphones.
“The Snapdragon 710 Mobile Platform is the first in the newly defined and highly significant 700-tier, offering technologies and features previously only available in our premium-tier mobile platforms,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “By incorporating key AI capabilities and performance advancements, the Snapdragon 710 is designed to transform our customers products into the ultimate personal assistant, enhancing critical everyday consumer experiences, such as high-end camera features that will benefit from on-device high-speed AI processing, without sacrificing battery life.”
The new platform is powered by a multi-core AI Engine, and promises up to 2X overall performance improvements in AI applications, as compared to Snapdragon 660. “Utilizing AI capabilities, the Snapdragon 710 makes it virtually effortless to capture and share contextually-aware photos and videos and personalize voice and speech patterns for more natural interactions,” said Qualcomm in a press release.
“Through heterogeneous computing, the Snapdragon 710 Mobile Platform’s newly enhanced architectures, including the Qualcomm Hexagon DSP, Qualcomm Adreno Visual Processing subsystem and Qualcomm Kryo CPU, are engineered to work harmoniously to run on-device AI applications quickly, intuitively and efficiently,” it further added
The new CPU also promises better photography support. It comes with Qualcomm Spectra 250 ISP that “supports enhancements in capturing professional-grade quality photos and videos with superior low light photography, noise reduction, fast autofocus, image stabilization, smooth zoom and real-time bokeh effects”. The Qualcomm Spectra 250 ISP is designed to deliver super resolutions with up to 32MP single ISP and 20MP dual ISP.
“Additionally, the AI Engine in the Snapdragon 710 supports smooth, speedy video style transfer, deep portrait modes and Face ID / Unlock with active depth sensing,” claimed Qualcomm.
Like premium Snapdragon 800 family of processors, the Snapdragon 710 also features 4K HDR playback for viewing HDR videos and apps.
As per the company, with Snapdragon X15 LTE modem the new processor can support up to 800 Mbps download speeds. Qualcomm said: “It brings some of the most advanced 4G LTE technologies to the 700-tier, including 4×4 MIMO technology (on up to 2 aggregated carriers) for up to 70% faster download speeds in weak signal conditions, and License-Assisted Access (LAA) for faster speeds in crowded places, compared to devices that don’t support 4×4 MIMO.”
The Snapdragon 710 also offers an advanced suite of wireless technologies including cutting EDGE Wi-Fi features and enhanced Bluetooth 5 multicast audio with support for ultra-low power wireless earbuds.
Due to enhancements to the Adreno 616 Visual Processing Subsystem architecture, Snapdragon 710-based devices can expect to see up to 40% reduction in power consumption for both gaming and 4K HDR video playback, as well as a 20% reduction in power consumption when streaming video, when compared to Snapdragon 660. Additionally, the new Kryo 360 architecture, built on ARM Cortex technology, is optimized to support up to a 20% overall uplift in performance, 25% faster web browsing and 15% faster App launch times, compared to the Snapdragon 660.
With the latest Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+ technology, users can get a 50% battery charge within 15 minutes, claims the company.
The Snapdragon 710 Mobile Platform is available today and is expected to be found in consumer devices in the second quarter of 2018.