SHANGHAI—Qualcomm bumped up its super popular 600-series and 400-series mobile processors today at Mobile World Congress Shanghai. While the new Snapdragon 632, 439, and 429 are sure to appear in many midrange US phones, it's telling that they were announced in China—and it shows how Qualcomm is living on the pointy end of the US government's trade bayonet.
The Snapdragon 632 replaces the 625 and 626, which were announced in 2016. You'll find those chips in phones like the Moto G5 Plus and G5S Plus, Moto Z2 Play, and BlackBerry KeyOne in the US, but also in a huge slew of phones released by Asus, ZTE, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and other Asian manufacturers.
The new chip is a big spec bump for that tier, kicking the main CPU from a Cortex-A53 up to a 1.8GHz quad-core Kryo 250 and the GPU to an Adreno 506; Qualcomm promises 40 percent better CPU performance and 10 percent better GPU performance than the Snapdragon 626.
The Snapdragon 400 series is even more popular than the 600 series. While there are more than 1,300 different 600-based phone models out there, there are more than 2,300 400-based models, according to Qualcomm. The Snapdragon 439 and 429 replace the Snapdragon 430 and 425. Those chips appear in very low-cost smartphones like the Moto E series and LG Zone for Verizon.
The Snapdragon 400-series basic CPU architecture remains the same as before, with Cortex A53 cores from ARM, but they're being amped up in clock speed. The 439 has eight cores, four of which max out at 1.95GHz, while the 429 has four 1.95GHz cores. The previous generation ran at 1.4GHz, so there's a 25 percent gain in CPU power without a major architecture change, according to Qualcomm.
All the chipsets are getting bumped up to support popular dual-camera features out there right now, including bokeh and wide-angle. The Snapdragon 632 supports either a 24-megapixel main camera, or up to dual 13MP main cameras; the 429 supports either 21MP or two 8MP, and the 429 supports up to 16MP or two 8MP.
The three chipsets support "bezelless" screens, Qualcomm said, and offer lower-power, and thus better, battery life than the previous generation.
Dual-SIM dual-VOLTE, critical for India now that all-LTE carrier Jio has swept that country, also appears on these chipsets. That includes "ultra HD voice," also known as EVS.
At the Mercy of Congress
It's important to note that ZTE has been a major Qualcomm customer for all of these chipsets, and that there's now a lot of speculation and worry about what the President and Congress treating Chinese smartphone manufacturers as enemies will do to Qualcomm's business.
Cutting off Chinese customers could really hurt Qualcomm, which does about half its business in China. Apple's attempts to free itself of Qualcomm chips makes the San Diego-based company even more dependent on its Chinese customers. This Reuters story provides a good picture of the tough position Qualcomm is in right now.
All four of Qualcomm's 2018 products—the 710, the 632, the 439 and the 429—look designed to get more manufacturer customers in China than anywhere else. They're designed to fight off Qualcomm's main competitor, Mediatek, at the high end, and to prevent local Chinese players from making inroads in chipsets by offering high-performance, low-cost products in the 600 series.
This whole strategy could collapse if Qualcomm is forbidden from selling to Chinese manufacturers, or if those Chinese makers feel they can no longer think of the American company as a reliable partner. Ironically, considering Congress has been painting its export restrictions in patriotic terms, they could be a disaster for one of the US's most prominent high-tech exporters.