Qualcomm announces its new budget 5G compatible Snapdragon 480 chipset

Qualcomm is making it easier for manufacturers to make their budget phones 5G compatible. Qualcomm officially announced their new Snapdragon 480 chipset which is 5G compatible. This is the first processor in Snapdragon’s 4-series of chips that would power budget Android smartphones.

This could be a big piece of tech in making the new 5G standard available to a wider number of users around the world. Through Snapdragon 480 manufacturers can easily add 5G compatibility to their cheap budget smartphones in the range of $125 to $250.

Currently almost all the 5G compatible smartphones are above $500 and are specially flagship smartphones. With Snapdragon 4-series chips 2021 might become the year when 5G becomes mainstream.

The new chips were originally teased at IFA 2020. The Snapdragon 480 features an integrated Snapdragon X51 modem with support for both mmWave and sub-6GHz networks.

Apart from 5G compatibility Qualcomm is also boasting of the increased performance in the newer chip than its predecessor Snapdragon 460. The company claims a two fold boost in the performance in the newer chip, with a 70 percent improvement for AI tasks.

There are also several features that have trickled down from past premium Snapdragon products, making their debut on the budget line for the first time. The Snapdragon 480 is the first 4-series chip to use an 8nm process, the first to support Quick Charge 4 Plus, the first to support 120fps FHD+ panels, the first to offer 64-megapixel still images, and the first to offer a triple ISP for triple camera integration that can shoot up to three photos at once. Again, none of these are new features, but they should vastly expand what budget-priced phones will be able to do — especially when combined with the performance improvements coming to the CPU and GPU.