Qualcomm has bet all of its chips on the adoption of 5G across the globe. Not only the flagship Snapdragon 865 but the mid-range 5G-enabled Snapdragon 765 chipset that debuted alongside cemented its commitment towards this network technology. Today, Qualcomm has taken another crucial step, with the launch of the Snapdragon 690 5G mobile platform, to expand 5G adoption globally.

  • CPU

Snapdragon 690 5G is an octa-core chipset based on a new Kryo 560 CPU. This is the second chipset in Qualcomm’s portfolio to use the new Cortex-A77 cores and Kryo 500-series branding. It includes two Cortex-A77 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and six Cortex-A56 cores clocked at 1.7GHz.

CPU

  • GPU

Gaming on mobile phones is one of the many things buyers today consider before a purchase is finalized and you should get pretty good gaming performance with both Snapdragon 690 and Snapdragon 765.

GPU

5G Modem

5G technology is the common denominator here but there’s a key difference that sets apart these two chipsets. Snapdragon 690 includes the Snapdragon X51 modem while the Snapdragon 765 comes equipped with the Snapdragon X52 modem.

This is also the reason that the download and upload speeds for the Snapdragon 690 are limited to 2.5Gbps and 660Mbps respectively. It goes up to 3.7Gbps download and up to 1.6Gbps upload speeds for the Snapdragon 765 chipset. The rest of the features remain the same across the board, including support for both standard (SA) and non-standard (NSA) networks.

ISP (Image Signal Processor)

Both the Snapdragon 690 and Snapdragon 765 chipsets come equipped with basically the same ISP. The latter includes the Spectra 355 ISP while the former features a lite version of the said ISP – Spectra 355L ISP. It’s a dual 14-bit ISP that supports up to 4K HDR video recording (another first for Snapdragon 6-series), 192MP photo capture, and portrait video.

Display

We decided to include the display section in here so you know the highest resolution and refresh rates supported by either chipset. I will keep it concise though.

Apart from this, as per the official data sheet, both the 5G-enabled chipsets support HDR10+ and 10-bit color depth. Ultimately, it’s up to the phone makers to offer the said features to the users.

AI Engine

Qualcomm has made considerable leaps in the AI department over the years. Its first mid-range 5G chipset arrived with a 5th-Gen Qualcomm AI Engine with up to 5.5 TOPS AI performance. The Snapdragon 690 5G chipset adds another first to its name by introducing the 5th-Gen Qualcomm AI Engine as well.

Connectivity

Both the Snapdragon 690 and Snapdragon 765 serve up almost the same connectivity options – except for the 5G modems as we have mentioned above.

Both of the chipsets are WiFi 6-ready (802.11ax-ready) and supports dual-band WiFi out-of-the-box. There’s a minor difference on the Bluetooth connectivity front, with the newer Snapdragon 690 supporting Bluetooth 5.1 over Bluetooth 5.0 supported by the Snapdragon 765.

Snapdragon 690 5G vs Snapdragon 765 5G: The Rise of Affordable 5G Phones

Qualcomm made it possible for phone makers to bring sub-Rs. 30,000 5G phones to the market with the Snapdragon 765 SoC earlier this year. It has since introduced an upgrade to this chipset in the form of Snapdragon 768. Now, however, the American chipmaker has decided to make 5G technology widely available and accessible to all users globally by launching the first-ever 5G-enabled Snapdragon 6-series chipset.