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Snapdragon 730 is Qualcomm’s “mid-range flagship” for 2019, positioned just below Snapdragon 855. Although its overall performance is still not as good as the previous flagship Snapdragon 845, in front of its siblings in the Snapdragon 7 and 6 series, Snapdragon 730 still has a big brother aura, at least for a long time to come, smartphones priced between 1500 and 2000 yuan will be proud to be equipped with this chip.
Click to view Snapdragon 730 review
As the most popular SoC in the Android smartphone market, the only ones that can compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon are MediaTek and HiSilicon, and the only contenders against Snapdragon 730 are currently limited to MediaTek Helio P90 and HiSilicon Kirin 810.
Brief Overview of Helio P90
Helio P90 is an octa-core processor built on a 12nm process, consisting of dual-core Cortex A75 and six-core Cortex A55, integrating PowerVR GM9446 GPU from Imagination (reportedly 50% better performance than the Mali-G72 MP3 integrated in P60/70), and the NeuroPilot heterogeneous AI computing architecture has been upgraded to APU 2.0, making its AI performance four times that of the earlier Helio P60. At the same time, Helio P90 supports dual VoLTE, Bluetooth 5.0, three-carrier aggregation, and Cat-12 (which is on par with Snapdragon 660) networks.
From the specifications, Helio P90 should find it hard to beat Snapdragon 730; at best, it is on par with Snapdragon 710, which seems a bit outdated even before its release, so just a brief overview will suffice.
PS: MediaTek has just released Helio P65, which is designed on a 12nm process, consisting of dual-core Cortex-A75 (2.0GHz) + six-core Cortex-A55 (1.7GHz), integrating Mali-G52 2EEMC2 (Mali-G52MP2?), supporting LTE Cat.13 and the new generation heterogeneous computing technology CorePilot (AI performance improved by 2 times), and has added many hardware accelerators related to photography, such as a professional-grade depth engine, electronic image stabilization (EIS), rolling shutter compensation (RSC), and camera control unit (CCU). From the specifications, Helio P65 should be below P90, but the gap is not far.
Detailed Analysis of Kirin 810
In the past, HiSilicon relied on the Kirin 6 series (like Kirin 659) and 7 series (like Kirin 710) to compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 series family. However, when Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 7 series SoC, the performance of Kirin 710 became somewhat inadequate, as the latter’s performance is only on par with Snapdragon 660. When Snapdragon 710 was “cheapened” to the thousand-yuan price point, Kirin 710 could no longer be considered competitive.
Therefore, Huawei’s launch of Kirin 810 is quite meaningful as it fills the performance gap in Huawei/Honor series smartphones between Kirin 980 and Kirin 710, further enhancing the performance and competitiveness of mid-range products.
Compared to its predecessor Kirin 710, Kirin 810 has achieved a qualitative leap, with significant improvements in process technology, CPU architecture, GPU specifications, networking, image processing, and AI.
First, Kirin 810 adopts the same 7nm process as Kirin 980, making it the most advanced SoC after Kirin 980, Snapdragon 855, and Apple A12. It’s worth noting that Snapdragon 730 uses an 8nm process, which is merely an optimized version of Samsung’s 10nm, while Kirin 810’s process advantage will directly translate into lower heat generation and power consumption.
In terms of CPU architecture, Kirin 810 uses a combination of ARM native Cortex-A76 and Cortex-A55, with a maximum clock speed of 2.27GHz. In comparison, Snapdragon 730 uses a modified Kryo470 based on Cortex-A76/A55, theoretically giving it a greater advantage, but Snapdragon 730’s clock speed is slightly lower, and its heat control is not as good as that of the more advanced Kirin 810, allowing Kirin 810 to achieve better scores in CPU benchmarks.
On the GPU architecture front, Kirin 810 also uses ARM’s Mali-G52. Seeing this GPU, many may feel disappointed; why not equip Kirin 810 with a Mali-G7 series GPU?？！！
In fact, the specifications of the Mali-G52 GPU are not bad; it shares the same architecture as Mali-G76, with doubled ALU channels in each EU unit, and it supports all features that Mali-G76 does (such as Vulkan, OpenCL/GL, etc.). Moreover, the Mali-G52 integrated into Kirin 810 is paired with six computing units, making it Mali-G52MP6, and introduces Kirin Gaming+ technology, so its 3D performance can not only surpass its predecessor Kirin 710 but also lead Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 730. For a mid-range SoC, that’s sufficient.
At the same time, Kirin 810 also adopts Huawei’s self-developed Da Vinci architecture NPU for the first time, possessing the strongest edge AI performance in the smartphone industry (leading Snapdragon 855). As Huawei’s HiAI mobile development platform gains increasing influence, the Da Vinci architecture NPU is bound to play a significant role in the future.
In terms of networking, Kirin 810 boasts flagship-level communication capabilities, supporting dual SIM dual VoLTE, achieving stable and high-speed mobile communication connections in various complex communication scenarios. In terms of baseband, Kirin 810 supports a downlink speed of Cat.18, which is 1Gbps, higher than the Cat.15 (800Mbps) supported by Snapdragon 730.
In terms of imaging, Kirin 810 is similar to Kirin 980, also integrating an independent DSP digital signal processor and IVP+ISP image signal processor. Combined with stronger edge AI computing capabilities, it can provide faster scene recognition and optimization, making handheld night scene shooting capabilities even better.
As for how powerful Kirin 810 is, AnTuTu recently released the benchmark scores for this chip and compared it with Kirin 710 and Snapdragon 730. From the data, Kirin 810’s performance aligns with the claims made during the Huawei nova 5 launch; whether in CPU, GPU, MEM, or UX performance, it shows a clear advantage over Snapdragon 730, making it the strongest mid-range SoC.
However, although Kirin 810’s performance meets expectations, the price of the nova 5, which is the first phone equipped with this chip, cannot be considered affordable (2799 yuan). It’s worth noting that the nova 5 Pro, equipped with Kirin 980, is only 200 yuan more expensive, and in comparison to the stronger performance, Kirin 980 is clearly more appealing.
As consumers, we can hope that the Honor series mid-range smartphones will quickly adopt Kirin 810, bringing its price down to below 2000 yuan, thus further showcasing its performance-to-price advantage. Let’s look forward to it together.
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