At this time, 5G capabilities are still reserved to high-end smartphones while mid-range smartphones and lower are still stuck to 4G standards. Leaked specifications for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 735, however, points to a future where mid-range smartphones can enjoy 5G speeds.
A screenshot of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 735 points to several upgrades compared to previous chips. It seems that Qualcomm will be implementing a 5G modem to the chip allowing brands and manufacturers to bring 5G speeds to affordable smartphones.
The chip will also be made from a 7nm LPP lithography, which should bump up performance gains by a bit. Instead of a 2+6 core design, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 735 will be using a 1+1+6 core cluster based on a 1 Kyro core running at 2.9GHz, another single Kyro core at 2.4GHz, and six Kyro cores clocked at 1.8GHz.
The GPU will also be upgraded to an Adreno 620 with a max clock speed of 750MHz while RAM will be upped to support 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM. AI will be tackled with its NPU 220 running at 1.0GHz.
It is expected that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 735 will be announced at the end of the year. Smartphones, meanwhile, should arrive in the first half of 2020.
