On January 4, 2021, Qualcomm Technologies announced the launch of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G mobile platform, which is the first Snapdragon 4 series mobile platform that supports 5G. Snapdragon 480 can further promote the popularization of 5G, enabling more entry-level 5G mobile phones to be launched.

Kedar Kondap, vice president of product management at Qualcomm Technologies, said: "Qualcomm Technologies will continue to accelerate the global 5G commercialization process so that more users can use 5G smartphones, especially when people around the world continue to maintain remote communication. The Snapdragon 480 5G mobile platform will exceed the expectations of OEMs and consumers for this level of products, providing mid-to-high-end features at affordable prices."

It is understood that the Snapdragon 480 integrates the Snapdragon X51 modem and supports mmWave and networks below 6 GHz. Adding 5G to the 4 series platform can further reduce the cost and price of 5G mobile phones. At present, the price of most 5G mobile phones has basically reached US$500, and mobile phones with 5G functions basically exist in mid-range or mid-to-high-end mobile phones.

Qualcomm added 5G to the 4 series to help mobile phone manufacturers to produce 5G mobile phones worth $125-250. It is believed that more popular and economical 5G mobile phones will appear in 2021.

In addition to the 5G function of the Snapdragon 480, compared to the previous generation Snapdragon 460, the performance will also be greatly improved. The performance of the CPU and GPU of the Snapdragon 480 is twice that of the previous model, and the performance of AI tasks is increased by 70%. In addition, the Snapdragon 480 is the first 4 series chip with 8nm process, the first supports Quick Charge 4 Plus, the first supports 120fps FHD+ panel, the first provides 64 million pixel static image processing support, the first provides three camera integration three ISP , Can take three photos at the same time.

It is estimated that the first mobile phone equipped with Snapdragon 480 is expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2021. Major companies such as vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, Motorola and HMD's Nokia are also expected to launch mobile phones equipped with this platform in the future.