Qualcomm Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 Chipset for Entry-Level 5G Smartphones Debuts in India

Qualcomm announced its latest chipset for the mobile platform – Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 – at the Snapdragon for India event today (July 30). It sits below the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 in Qualcomm’s mobile processor lineup and is targeted towards introducing entry-level 5G smartphones in India. With its launch, the company aims to introduce $99 (roughly Rs. 8,200) phones.

In a subsequent announcement, Xiaomi confirmed it will be the first original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to launch a handset powered by this SoC in the country before the end of the year.

Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 SoC Specifications

According to Qualcomm, its new Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 is aimed at making Gigabit 5G “more attainable” courtesy of the 5G Modem-RF System. The chip also comes with standalone (SA) 5G network support for operating on frequency bands that work independently of 4G networks. It supports dual-SIM 5G connections. Notably, Reliance Jio is the only telecommunications provider in India to offer SA 5G connectivity.

It is built on a 64-bit architecture featuring a Qualcomm Kryo CPU with eight cores: two performance and two efficiency. The two performance cores have a peak clock speed of 2.0 GHz while the six efficiency cores are capped at 1.8 GHz. The Adreno GPU onboard offers support for OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1 and OpenCL 2.0 APIs. The SoC is fabricated on a 4-nanometre process.

Qualcomm says devices running this chipset can feature LPDDR4x RAM clocked at up to 2133 MHz and up to UFS 3.1 onboard storage. Additionally, the 12-bit Spectra Image Signal Processor (ISP) will support up to 84-megapixel single camera sensors, with options for features such as electronic image stabilisation (EIS) and Multi Frame Noise Reduction (MFNR). The chip has been equipped to support full-HD+ displays with a refresh rate of up to 90Hz. It can also playback videos at a maximum resolution of 1080p at 60 frames-per-second (fps). Furthermore, it gets Qualcomm aptX Adaptive Audio for 96kHz music streaming.

Smartphones with the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 chip are capable of offering a USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 1 interface and Quick Charge 4+ technology. It comes with Qualcomm’s Location Suite, supporting navigational systems (GPS) like QZSS, Galileo, Beidou, GLONASS, NavIC, and GPS, with lane and sidewalk-level accuracy. The processor also supports Bluetooth 5.1 and up to Wi-Fi 5.