Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 780G with more premium features

Today, Qualcomm is introducing the Snapdragon 780G Mobile Platform, which is a 5G chipset designed for high-end phones that sit right below the premium tier. Obviously, it's all about bringing some premium features to devices that come in at a lower price point.

One of those features is the Spectra 570 triple ISP. What that means is that the camera can actually capture images from three different lenses simultaneously, the obvious choices being a wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto lens. Qualcomm is also promising better low-light performance, and support for HDR10+ video capture.

Another big new feature is the sixth-generation Qualcomm AI Engine, powered by the Hexagon 770 DSP and combined with the Kryo 670 CPU and the Adreno 642 GPU. The company is promising twice the performance of the previous generation, adding up to 12 TOPS.

“Since introducing the Snapdragon 7-series three years ago, more than 350 devices have launched based on 7-series mobile platforms. Today, we are continuing this momentum by introducing the Snapdragon 780G 5G Mobile Platform,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Snapdragon 780G was designed to bring in-demand, premium experiences to more users around the world.”

The Snapdragon 780G is actually the successor to the Snapdragon 765G, which was introduced in December 2019 at Snapdragon Technology Summit. While not the first Snapdragon 7 series SoC, it was the first 5G one, and it was the first to really offer a high-end experience. For some time, it was becoming clear that a big chunk of consumers want premium features, but don't need everything that the Snapdragon 8 series had to offer.

That's where the Snapdragon 7 series comes in. With the average price of a flagship smartphone going up and up, you can still get a great phone at a more reasonable price. There were a bunch of these that hit the market last year, such as LG's Velvet and Motorola's new Edge.

The good news is that if you're looking forward to the Snapdragon 780G showing up in new devices, you won't have to wait long. Qualcomm says that devices are expected to be available starting in the second quarter of this year, which is a week away.