Qualcomm’s New Chip Could Bring 5G to Phones Priced Under $100

Qualcomm’s newest chip is aiming to make 5G connectivity standard among some of the cheapest of phones on the market and touts the capability of powering fast 40-watt wired charging and gaming for phones priced under $100.

The Snapdragon 4S Gen 2 platform, announced Tuesday, is targeting these lower-end phones, which Qualcomm says will start coming out later this year, starting with a device from Xiaomi.

“With this new platform, the result is gigabit 5G smartphones for under $99,” Carina Affinito, Qualcomm’s staff manager of Product Marketing, said in a prebrief statement. 

Much like other S chips offered by Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 4S Gen 2 targets phones that are a slight tier below last year’s Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 processor. There’s also no guarantee that companies that make phones in the US will use this particular processor, although Qualcomm’s earlier Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 processor sits roughly within the same tier and powers Motorola’s $200 Moto G 5G. Since Qualcomm doesn’t release new versions of its less powerful chips on annual basis, the 4S Gen 2 offers phonemakers another option with newer features for lower-cost devices.

Meanwhile Samsung and TCL often use rival MediaTek’s processors in their 5G-capable phones priced under $200, such as the $200 Galaxy A15 5G. TCL’s 50 series of 5G phones go even cheaper — as low as $100 for the TCL 50 XE 5G to $160 for the TCL 50 XL 5G, for instance — but are often locked to a single US carrier when hitting those lower prices.

However, many other phones that cost $150 or less are still releasing in 2024 without any 5G connectivity, and it’s possible that the availability of chipsets like the 4S Gen 2 targeting those cheaper phones will help make the capability more ubiquitous — giving even the phone owners with the smallest budget the fast speeds and large bandwidth of 5G networks.

Read more: Best Cheap Phone of 2024: Most Value for the Money