Qualcomm has launched a new smartphone SoC – the Snapdragon 712. When the 700-series were announced, they promised 2 times the AI performance and 30% more power efficiency over the existing 600-series. And fast forward to today, we only have a Snapdragon 710 in that category, which we can find in mid-range devices of today. With the Snapdragon 712, we now have one more…but it doesn’t add anything except to what we already have. 
The Snapdragon 712 has the same architecture, the same fabrication, and everything. The only difference is that the 712 provides a 100 MHz more clock speed, making it 2.3 GHz from the 710’s 2.2 GHz. Qualcomm says that the 712 is 10% faster than the 710. And I doubt that kind of performance boost is even noticeable. So…not very exciting stuff, is it?
The only thing that can be considered an upgrade is the support for QuickCharge 4.0+. With this, at least, the charging time on phones will decrease considerably. Besides that, everything is the same.
It is still based on the 10 nm technology, with 8 cores – two 2.3 GHz Kyro 360 Gold Cortex-A75 cores and six 1.7 GHz Kyro 360-Silver Cortex A-55 cores. Also, it features the same Adreno 616 as GPU and Hexagon 685 DSP. Just like it’s predecessor, i.e. the 710, it integrates the Qualcomm X15 LTE modem too. So, this is all the same. There’s nothing new. At all.
But still, with its small added benefits, it will be used in the upcoming mid-range devices. But honestly, I do not see any considerable benefit in this one. So, if the upcoming mid-range devices are going to include this chipset, then, they better provide other compelling features as well. Else, any older phone with a Snapdragon 710 is good enough and there will be no need to upgrade to the 712.
The Snapdragon 712 will be available by the first quarter of 2019.
