MediaTek's Dimensity 700 Mobile SoC Battles Qualcomm In Effort To Bring 5G To The Masses

5G is the latest buzzword in the wireless industry and smartphone OEMs are increasingly embracing the technology at even lower price points. Eventually, 5G availability will become just as commonplace as 4G LTE, and the Dimensity 700 is the latest step in that direction. The Dimensity 700 embraces this drive down-market with two high-performance Arm Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.2GHz, and six 2GHz Cortex-A55 efficiency cores. For graphics duties, MediaTek is using a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU.

Given that this is a lower-cost entry, the Dimensity 700 only supports sub-6GHz 5G connectivity, meaning that mmWave is not an option here. Given that mmWave has been mostly relegated to the United States -- and more specifically, Verizon -- this loss probably isn't that big a deal for many folks looking for a budget smartphone. In addition, the hardware needed for mmWave (like custom antennas) adds additional costs to a smartphone (as we've seen with some Verizon-specific versions of 5G smartphones). With that being said, the integrated modem supports 5G carrier aggregation and dual-SIM dual standby. 

The Dimensity 700 also supports up to a 64MP primary camera sensor and a host of AI-enhancements to boost image quality. The SoC can support LPDDR4x-2133 memory, UFS 2.2 storage, and FullHD+ display (2520x1080) with up to a 90Hz refresh rate.

MediaTek says that the first smartphones using the Dimensity 700 5G SoC will arrive during Q1 2021. As best as we can tell from these specs, the Qualcomm SoC that is most evenly matched for the Dimensity 700 is the Snapdragon 690, right down to its 2+6 core configuration (albeit Cortex-A77/Cortex-A55 in this case) and support for only sub-6GHz 5G bands. The first smartphones for the U.S. market to use the Snapdragon 690 are the OnePlus Nord N100 5G (which we reviewed here) and the LG K92 5G.