Qualcomm expands 400-tier with Snapdragon 450

Adopting a top-bottom approach, shortly after announcing the Snapdragon 660 and 630 in the 600-series, Qualcomm has expanded the 400-tier with the new Snapdragon 450. As you’d expect, the new Qualcomm chip is better in every way compared to its predecessor, Snapdragon 435.

Based on 14nm FinFET process technology, the octa-core processor and Adreno 506 GPU offers 25 percent improvement in compute and graphics performance compared to the 435. The battery life has also improved with the chip consuming up to 30 percent less power while gaming and with the help of Quick Charge 3.0, it can charge the device from 0 to 80 percent in just 35 minutes.

Connectivity-wise, the Snapdragon 450 features Qualcomm’s X9 LTE modem that offers a downlink and uplink of up to 300Mbps and 150Mbps respectively, 802.11ac with MU-MIMO, USB 3.0 Type-C, iris scanner support and can support a a Full HD+ resolution with an aspect ratio of 18:9.

The biggest improvement however, comes on the camera side. Snapdragon 450 will enable manufacturers to integrate either a single 21MP camera or if going the dual camera route, manufacturers can go up to 13MP+13MP. The chip enables real-time Bokeh, supports Qualcomm Clear Sight, 1080p video recording at 60fps and even Full HEVC encode and decode.

Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 450 will begin sampling to manufacturers in the next quarter with first devices expected to hit the market in Q4 2017.

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