Snapdragon’s New Chip Brings Flagship Power to Budget Phones
While Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s chips are scaled-down versions of the standard Snapdragon 7 series, they still deliver reliable performance and even high-end features at a more accessible price. Now, the mobile chip lineup gets a refresh with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4, bringing more flagship-level traits, including improved camera and gaming capabilities, to budget and mid-range phones.
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 succeeds last year’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, which powered popular Android devices like the Galaxy XCover 7 Pro, Nothing Phone 3a (review), and Redmi Note 14 Pro (review). Expect the new chip to appear in similar categories, but with meaningful upgrades.
High-End 4K Gaming Features for Less
The new mid-range chip delivers a modest performance bump, with a 7% boost in CPU speed. It retains the 1+3+4 core architecture, led by a Cortex-A720 prime core clocked at 2.7 GHz. The Adreno GPU remains unchanged but also sees a 7% uplift in graphics performance.
The more impactful improvements are found from the added gaming feature. The chip now supports the Adaptive Performance Engine 3.0 and Snapdragon Game Super Resolution, which are part the Snapdragon Elite Gaming suite of features. These enable better visuals with 4K upscaling and more stable high-frame rates, while also improving thermal efficiency during gaming.
There's now support WFHD+ displays with a 2,900 x 1,300 resolution, along with up to a 144 Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ for smooth and vivid visuals.
Better Low-Light Video
Furthermore, there are bigger enhancements in the camera department as well. The Snapdragon Spectra ISP enables capturing 200 MP photos and zero shutter lag in video recording. It also gains Snapdragon Low Light Vision (LLV), which enhances video quality in low-light scenes. This feature was previously exclusive to more premium chipsets.
In terms of AI, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 gets on-device generative processing and abilities like live translation, courtesy of the Hexagon NPU. While Wi-Fi 7 isn't supported, the chip includes Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.4, and LE Audio. The chip supports 5G mmWave and sub-6 GHz frequencies, with up to a 2.9 Gbps download speed.
Xiaomi has confirmed that the upcoming Redmi Note 15 Pro is one of the first devices to run on the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 SoC. The affordable mid-range phone will be launched in China first followed by a global rollout in the near future.
What are your thoughts on these Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 upgrades? Do you feel that budget and mid-range phones are getting more exciting? Share with us your answers in the comments.
Source: Qualcomm
