Qualcomm's new chips will make dual-camera phones more affordable
These new midrange processors will start appearing on phones by the end of the year.
Fans of dual-camera phones soon won't have to spend a fortune on high-end handsets, thanks to Qualcomm's new batch of processors for mid-range devices.
The Snapdragon 626, 653 and 427 chips will support dual-camera phones, which Qualcomm says will take great low-light shots on their phones. They have a similar setup to the Huawei P9 , which features dual color and monochrome sensors.
The Snapdragon 626 and 653 succeed the 625 and 652 processors currently available, and have 10 percent better performance than their predecessors. While the 427 doesn't get the same performance boost, it will support LTE category seven. That means it'll achieve download speeds of up to 300Mbps and upload speeds of 150Mbps thanks to the new X9 LTE modem.
The processors will also support Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0 technology, but some manufacturers may chose to leave this feature out or opt for the older versions of Quick Charge to cut down on costs.
Phones sporting the Snapdragon 626 and 653 chips will be available at the end of the year, but the Snapdragon 427 will only start showing up in phones in the first quarter of 2017. Between these three processors, the 653 is the most powerful, and supports up to 8GB of RAM.
Manufacturers will start touting phones with a whopping 8GB of RAM very soon. Chinese manufacturers such as Xiaomi or Oppo will likely be first to offer these devices, as midrange but powerful phones are ideal for their aggressive pricing strategies in markets such as India and China.