Roland Quandt: The Snapdragon 710 is on its way

Qualcomm released the Snapdragon 660 in May last year. The SoC impressed, as it offered game-changing performance numbers on par with the last-gen premium Snapdragon 820. There were rumors a while back that Qualcomm would try to outdo the 660 with a new SoC, the Snapdragon 670, but that turned out false, as the semiconductor manufacturer announced a new Snapdragon 700 series instead.

The first SoC in that series will apparently be the Snapdragon 710, if popular tipster Roland Quandt is to be believed. There are no known dates for the launch of this SoC but it wouldn't be at all surprising if it were introduced sometime next month.

This Snapdragon 710 is likely to be the same Snapdragon 670 that rumors touted back then. This means that it could offer performance close to the Snapdragon 835—benchmarks of the Snapdragon 670 showed it matching the 835 in single core but having a slight disadvantage in multi-core tests.

While more power is always appreciated, we're a bit stumped as to Qualcomm's rationale behind creating a new series. The gap between the Snapdragon 600 series and the 800 flagship one was all but bridged by the Snapdragon 660. A 700-series line just introduces more fragmentation into Qualcomm's already complex SoC structure.