Snapdragon 480 Chipset: It seems we won’t have to wait for king before we see an affordable device powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. The company just released the Snapdragon 480 5G mobile platform. Qualcomm 4-series is targeted at budget friendly smartphones and now the line up just got its first 5G SoC.

Snapdragon 480 chipset is set to power more pocket friendly 5G phones in 2021 and beyond. This chipset is built on the 8nm process and has an integrated Snapdragon X51 5G Modem-RF system with support for both mmWave and Sub-6 GHz networks.

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It’s CPU is the Kryo 460 with octa cores based on Cortex-A76 and speed clocked at 2.0GHz. There is a more power efficient A55 cores with speed clocked at 1.8GHz. Adreno 619 is the GPU paired with this chipset.

According to Qualcomm, there is a two-fold increase in both CPU and GPU performance compared to the previously released Snapdragon460 chipset. Thanks to the Qualcomm Hexagon 686 chipset, AI tasks is expected to be 70% faster.

Key Specifications of Snapdragon 480 chipset

Chipset (process)	Snapdragon 460 (11 nm)	Snapdragon 480 (8 nm)
CPU	Octa-core up to 1.8 GHz Kryo 240	Octa-core up to 2 GHz Kryo 460
GPU	Adreno 610	Adreno 619
Photo	Spectra 340 Up to 48 MP; 1080p @ 60 fps	Spectra 345 Up to 64MP; 1080p @ 60 fps
Modem	Snapdragon X11 LTE	Snapdragon X51 5G
Connectivity	Dual VoLTE; Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1	mmWave + Sub-6 Ghz; Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1
Fast charging	Quick Charge 3	Quick Charge 4+

Phones using this new SoC can also have 120Hz refresh rate displays with FHD+ resolution, use up to 64MP camera sensors and record 1080p videos at 60fps. SD480 has Qualcomm spectra 345 ISP which supports simultaneous capture from three camera sensors.

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The new SoC also come with SA and NSA 5G models, has dynamic spectrum sharing (DDS), Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity and WiFi 6. Smartphones using chipsets from Qualcomm 4 series cost between $250-$350. Which means phones using this new Snapdragon 480 chipset will be priced between$250-$350 which is nice.

Phone companies such as OPPO, Xiaomi, Nokia, Vivo, OnePlus and Motorola are expected to be among the first to use this new SoC in their phones. We are expecting the first phone with this chipset to debut between January and April of 2021.