Qualcomm 205 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 APQ8009

Qualcomm 205

The Qualcomm 205 (sometimes also called Snapdragon 205) is an entry level SoC for Android based smartphones. It contains two ARM Cortex-A7 CPU cores (dual-core) with a clock rate of up to 1.1 GHz, an Adreno 304 graphics card, an LPDDR2/LPDDR3 memory controller (max. 384 MHz), a eMMC 4.5 port, and a LTE Cat 4 radio module.

The performance of the Cortex-A7 cores is positioned in the low end of 2017. The two low clocked A7 cores should lead to noticable lags in browsing and using demanding apps. 

The integrated Adreno 304 graphics card is clocked at 400 MHz and also positioned in the entry level. Therefore, demanding games may not run smoothly in high settings.

The SoC integrates Bluetooth 4.1 + BLE, 802.11n (2.4 GHz) WiFi, and a Cat 4 4G-LTE-Modem (LTE FDD, LTE TDD, WCDMA (DC-HSDPA, HSUPA), CDMA1x, EV-DO Rev. B, TD-SCDMA and GSM/EDGE) with a max. speed of 150 Mbps.

The SoC is manufactured in a 28 nm LP process (at TSMC most likely). Due to the low energy consumption of the SoC it is also suited for small smartphones.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 APQ8009

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 APQ8009 is an entry level SoC for Android based tablets and smartphones. It contains four ARM Cortex-A7 CPU cores (quad core) with a clock rate of up to 1.3 GHz, an Adreno 304 graphics card, an LPDDR2/LPDDR3 memory controller (max. 533 MHz), a eMMC 4.5 port, but no 3G/LTE radio module.

The performance of the Cortex-A7 cores is rather low and positioned in the entry level of 2015. In our tests of the CAT S40 smartphone, daily tasks and browsing however imposed no problem for the SoC. 

The integrated Adreno 304 graphics card is clocked at 400 MHz and also positioned in the entry level. Therefore, demanding games may not run smoothly in high settings.

The integrated video engine allows the encoding and decoding of 1080p H.264 videos and decoding of H.265 videos. The main display can be driven with up to 1280x720 Pixels.

The SoC integrates Bluetooth 4.1 + BLE and 802.11n (2.4 GHz) WiFi.

The SoC is manufactured in a 28 nm LP process (at TSMC most likely). Due to the low energy consumption of the SoC it is also suited for small smartphones.