The smartphone industry is a huge market in itself and smartphone enthusiasts like me always consider the SoC as a very crucial part responsible for flawless gaming in a smartphone. The mid-range smartphones at present are the best value for money offerers. This is because these smartphones pack some serious hardware at an affordable price.
Last year, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 730G and MediaTek’s Helio G90T were one of the most popular mobile SoCs. And these SoCs took the controversy of Snapdragon VS MediaTek to a whole new level. The Helio G series was a great comeback from MediaTek in the mid-range segment as it was offering comparable performance at a cheaper price than what Snapdragon was offering.
The Helio G90T was one the best mid-range gaming SoC which was giving direct competition to Snapdragon 730G. Actually both were huge upgrades from their respective predecessors i.e. the old Helio P series and the Snapdragon 712 AIE respectively. But after the launch of these two SoCs, there are no hugely improved SoCs launched as their successors.
Yes, I know that the Snapdragon 732G and Helio G95 have recently been launched but there is not a huge upgrade in those SoC and I personally wouldn’t recommend anyone to upgrade if they are already using the predecessors of the aforementioned SoCs.
Reasons for no huge upgrades in the mid-range SoCs
But what is the reason behind all this scenario of launching the same SoC with small tweaking in the hardware? Let’s discuss this.
The Pandemic
The whole earth is paying the cost of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has affected the tech industry as well. Maximum countries were imposed with the nationwide lockdown, bringing most of the industrial work to a halt. This also affected companies like Qualcomm and MediaTek. As a result, there was not so much time and opportunity to develop something new.
Mid-range SoCs are more emphasizing towards gaming performance. But we have to admit that the online gaming industry has gained more profit due to the pandemic as most of the people are staying at home and passing their time by playing indoor games. Gambling, however, has faced a pretty bad time except for the online betting places and surebets apps and websites.
Pressure OEMs
Also, the premium SoC from the company is at priority e.g. the Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 and MediaTek Dimensity 2000, leading to a compromise in the mid-range Soc development. There was no practical way to launch the Helio G95 and Snapdragon 732G. But as the smartphone is launched, the mobile manufacturer asks the chipmaker to provide them something new in order to advertise as an upgrade over the previous one.
For instance, the Helio G90T and G95 are really very similar in performance and the company could have used the Helio G90T again but for the sake of upgrade, they implemented the Helio G95.
The Competition
Competition is a very big reason for a company to introduce new products every time. The MediaTek, Qualcomm, Exynos, etc. always try to introduce something new and upgraded in order to gain the mobile manufacturer’s attention to use their chips in the smartphones. This thing pressurizes the chip manufacturer to provide something new and improved in one way or the other.
Conclusion
Overall the companies are preparing for 2021 to acquire the SoC market. Because the whole of 2020 has been ruined due to the pandemic. Most of the companies including the chip manufacturing companies have shifted their huge plans to 2021 and are just trying to pass away this whole 2020 somehow. You will definitely see some great launched form chip makers in the coming 2021. Gaming centric chips will still be there with new and improved hardware.