Tuesday 31 May 2016

What is chipset and which is better?

As you know there are lot of mobile devices are present in market and companies are launching new device regularly.  Devices has different chipsets like MediaTek, Snapdragon, Intel, Kirin etc.. and right now the most popular ones we can say are Snapdragon and Mediatek.

Do you ever have a question like why many of the smartphones have Mediatek but not other
processor? Why it's good to know about the same while buying a new phone? If yes then read below and If not then you should read :)


We can divide people in to three categories as they select mobile device, first category include those who just see from very high level, second category includes people who have some internal knowledge of hardware and software and third category include people who checks everything. In which category you falls in?

So first category people may just look at the price, display size & battery. Second category may just check display size & type, operating system, RAM, battery and price and last category checks everything including software and hardware.

It's better to go somewhat in deep and check on both sides (software & hardware) before selecting any device, as when you buy any mobile you are not going to throw or change the same in a month or two instead you will use for a year at least, So go for any which provides you better performance, solve your purpose in good price range. Most of us now a days including people who are not mobile savvy still knows about software & their versions, display and RAM but having knowledge on chipset side is also good.

First you need to understand MediaTek, snapdragon etc. are not processor but they are Soc’s. Systems on chip which include your cpu,wifi,lte,gps,bluetooth,sensors etc. Every Soc’s which is used in mobile whether its samsung exynos, apple cortex , snapdragon or mediatek everybody uses ARM processor.

We start from snapdragon, Snapdragon processors are manufactured by Qualcomm, an American company headquartered in San Diego, California. Snapdragon processors are known for its high quality and high performance. Generally you will find Snapdragon processors in mid to high end smartphones or phones from well known brands. Snapdragon range of processors includes single core, dual core, quad core, hexa core and octa core processors. Devices which are low priced or medium priced use old processors and rest which use latest ones are costly.

Snapdragon chipsets have a CPU,GPU(Adreno Graphics),Image processor,Media processor,DSP(Digital Signal Processor),Cellular Modem unit,Wifi Modue,Radio Module,GPS Module,...etc. All these modules and Processors are inside of a snapdragon chip. Yes they incorporated all these things inside their chips. Hence their chips are costly.

MediaTek company headquartered in Taiwan. It gained wide popularity and reorganization in smartphones industry because of their cost effective processors. MediaTek processors are generally cheap and are they are widely used in budget to mid-range smartphones. MediaTek range of processors includes single core, dual core, quad core, hexa core, octa core and deca core processors.

Mediatek employs Mali graphics which is a third party graphics vendor(So graphics architecture is different from cpu and its performance may not match with cpu). It is really important to match the performances of cpu and gpu(graphics) so that the whole chipset performs efficiently and effectively.

Intel as we all know is the world leader in manufacturing computer processors. Intel has now begin using their Atom range of processors in some of the smartphones and tablets. Intel Atom range of processors are low powered (i.e. low voltage) & high performance based processors for mobile devices. With Intel Atom processor you will get more battery life from your smartphone, tablet or netbook as they are very well optimized. There are only few smartphones equipped with Intel processors like Asus Zenfone and Asus Zenfone 2, Lenovo K900, Xolo 1000.

This is the reason why Mediatek is so popular because it's very cheap as compared to other processors in market and provide good performance. But Mediatek devices life are not good and you will face problems like heating, voice problems, battery drains, performance etc at very early stage. It's not like you will not face these problems in other devices but it's less as compared to Mediatek devices.

You can see all mid range phones can say up to 15K has Mediatek chipset which provide others good specs too like good RAM, latest operating system, good camera etc... RAM also plays a very important role because when your processor cores increases, it means it will use more RAM, so if you are going to buy a octa core chipset device with just say 1gb of RAM then do not expect the device will work properly because it will not, it will lags even in small actions.

There are lot of other articles are present in internet which you can search and read and they are useful too for general knowledge about chipset. like Article in Quora, Tech Radar, Tekz24, Android Authority etc..

You will find lot of discussions on various site to know which chipset is better but at last can say it's all depends on usage or how will going to use your mobile, It also depend on price. So this preference or decision will vary from person to person.

This is just a short description to let you know about some of the chipsets. You can also share your views in comments.

No comments:

Post a Comment