Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 is really a 710 but with some slight upgrades

Last year, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 710 chipset, a mobile processor designed for mid- to high-range smartphones. The chipset was the first in the new 700 series, designed as a bridge between the mid-range 600 series and the high-end 800 series chipsets.

Now, less than a year after the launch of the 710, the company is launching the Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 chipset. However, don’t expect a huge jump in features and performance as compared to the 710, as it appears the Snapdragon 712 is more like an iterative upgrade than anything else.

Just like with the 710, the Snapdragon 712 is a 10nm-based chip with 64-bit architecture and 8x Qualcomm Kryo 360 CPU cores. It has the same GPU (the Adreno 616), the same modem (Snapdragon X15), the same peak download and upload speeds, and the same image signal processor.

Really, the only upgrades available with the 712 is slightly higher clock speed (2.3GHz over 2.2GHz in the 710), a slight upgrade in charging speed (Qualcomm 4+ over just Qualcomm 4 in the 710), and a pair of newly supported audio technologies.

Here are the specs:

Of course, Qualcomm claims the 712 is 10 percent faster than the 710 and offers better integration with AI elements and a smoother experience when playing games on a mobile device. However, as far as raw specs go, the 712 and the 710 aren’t all that different.

Since the 700 series is very young, it’s easy to forgive Qualcomm in launching a new chipset so soon and not offering too much as far as upgrades. However, if you see a smartphone with a 712 chipset and think it will be dramatically better than a cheaper phone with a 710 chipset, the 710 will deliver very similar results — so don’t sweat the decision too much.

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