As the next mobile network standard roles out across South Africa and the world, 5G-capable devices have begun dominating retail outlets. There’s just been one small obstacle: most of them are priced for those with fuller pockets. Normally at the forefront of eye-watering processing speeds, Qualcomm has developed a lower-budget 5G mobile processor to make the network standard more accessible.

Qualcomm has officially announced the Snapdragon 480 5G. This is the company’s first 5G-capable chipset in its 4-series chips, which are generally allocated to smartphones and devices that fall into the much-appreciated budget category.

5G in a Snap(dragon)

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 and 865+ chips notably power some of the industry’s leading flagship devices, like the entire Samsung S20 range, LG V60 ThinQ 5G and the Vivo X50 Pro+. But sometimes, you don’t need flagship chops, but would prefer 5G connectivity in a budget device. That’s exactly what the Snapdragon 480 5G plans to offer.

The Snapdragon 480 5G features an integrated Snapdragon X51 modem with support for both mmWave and sub-6GHz. According to its maker, it’ll provide double the CPU and GPU performance we saw in its predecessor. It’ll also sport an impressive 70% improvement for AI computing using its new Adreno 619 GPU, Kryo 460 CPU, and Qualcomm Hexagon 686 chipsets.

At this point, 5G in a mobile device will cost you upwards of R10,000. By adding 5G to its lower-range processor lineup, Qualcomm will help push out more affordable 5G smartphones to the world.

Source: The Verge