Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 Brings Even More Power To Midrange Phones

The Snapdragon chips that tend to make headlines the most are the Snapdragon 8 and Snapdragon X series, since they are the most powerful. But Qualcomm, as you’re well aware, also makes chips for cheaper phones as well. The latest Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 is here, and you’ll be seeing it soon on some of the best mid-range phones later this year.

Qualcomm has officially launched the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, the latest SoC in its 7-series lineup. This follows the recent release of the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4, and it’s packing very decent specs. It has a tri-cluster CPU configuration with one Prime core going up to 2.8 GHz, three performance cores going up to 2.4 GHz, and three efficiency cores reaching a lower 1.8 GHz. It supports up to a WQHD+ 144Hz camera, as well as up to 4K on an external display, and it can be equipped with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM. It also supports a variety of different camera configurations thanks to its Spectra image processor, as well as up to 4K@30fps recording.

Aside from the actual hardware, there’s a lot of stuff Qualcomm is highlighting here. The chip, for one, will include select features from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite Gaming suite, so this might be a pretty sweet chip for gaming, which is one of the reasons why people tend to get the 8-series as well. We also have the inclusion of Snapdragon Sound technology—the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 will be the first platform outside of Qualcomm’s premium 8-series to feature support for Qualcomm Expanded Personal Area Network (XPAN) technology. This is intended to provide more immersive and versatile audio experiences by providing a considerably more reliable connection between your phone and your compatible earbuds/headphones/speaker.

The chip features full support for newer technologies, including Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0, so you won’t be cut off from the latest and greatest stuff if you do decide to spend less—you’ll just have slightly lower-end hardware. Compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which is the crème de la crème on Qualcomm’s lineup right now, this one is much more modest spec-wise, but this is also a chip that will go on phones that, at most, will cost $500 to $600.

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Sadly, it doesn’t look like we’ll see this go on a phone that’s available in the US sometime soon. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 is debuting first on phones from Honor and Vivo, both of which are brands that don’t sell their phones in the US. We might still see something pop up within the next few months, though, so keep an eye out.

Source: Qualcomm