While budget smartphones are great if you just need a phone to communicate, surf the web, make calls, and send messages, sometimes OEMs tend to make some compromises in its hardware in order to make it affordable. This usually means that they will go for less powerful (and cheaper) chipsets, which also means that sometimes features such as LTE are excluded.
Now the good news for budget smartphone shoppers is that Qualcomm has recently announced a new chipset in the form of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 210. Now we know that Qualcomm has some entry-level chipsets, but the difference is that the Snapdragon 210 will feature an LTE modem, meaning that you could potentially get a smartphone on the cheap with LTE connectivity.
Unfortunately it will not be Category 6 LTE but Category 4 instead, but then again it’s still LTE which is pretty fast, so we guess it’s not too bad. The Snapdragon 210 will also feature a quad-core CPU with Adreno 304 graphics that will support Full HD displays with hardware High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC).
It will also play nicely with 8MP sensors, HDR, autofocus, auto white balance, and best of all, it will also support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 technology that allows your phone to be charged at a faster rate than normal, 75% to be exact. With the announcement of the Snapdragon 210, Qualcomm should be in a better position to compete with the likes of MediaTek who have been dominating developing markets such as China and India.