It was back in September 2018 when Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon Wear 3100, its new processor for smartwatches that arrived as a renewal of the Snapdragon 2100 with a DSP chip, a co-processor, big-small-tiny architecture and an ultra-saving mode of Energy. Now, even though there were rumors about a possible Snapdragon 3300, we already have its successors here: the Snapdragon 4100 and 4100+.
Both brains not only focus on power and autonomy, they make the leap to 12 nanometers. The big difference between them is that the 4100+ model, in addition to the main processor and all the additional chips, such as PMIC, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and RFEE, includes the co-processor and only supports Wear OS (the Wear 4100 supports Wear OS and AOSP).
Up to 85% more performance and 25% less energy consumption
Having clarified the differences between both models of the Snapdragon 4100 series, we will focus on the most advanced of them, the 4100+. This new processor is built on a 12-nanometer process and consists of four 1.7 GHz ARM Cortex A53 cores “optimized for wearables.” The main processor may be an SMD529W or SDA429W, while the co-processor will be a QCC1110.
That secondary processor will take care of offering Always On experiences, such as ambient mode, sports modes, and traditional watch mode. It is capable of working on its own when tasks do not require the power of the main processor and, unlike its predecessor, it can render up to 64.00 colors in ambient mode.
The RAM is LPDDR3 at 750 MHz instead of 400 Mhz and the GPU becomes the Adreno 504A instead of the Adreno 304, while the ISP is dual and now offers support for cameras up to 16 megapixels. All this translates, according to Qualcomm, in that the Snapdragon 4100+ provides, compared to the 3100, 85% more speed of processor and memory, a GPU 2.5 times faster and a camera with twice the resolution.
On the other hand, Qualcomm ensures that it has improved energy efficiency by offering dynamic clock speeds, voltage scaling, support for low-power geolocation and an “improved Bluetooth 5.0 architecture”, which will result in up to 25% less energy consumption compared to the previous generation.
And when it comes to connectivity, the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ integrates up to Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi in the 2.4 GHz band, NFC, GPS (GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo) and the X5 LTE modem. With this, manufacturers who choose it, will be able to offer global Cat 4/3/1 LTE connection in configurations of two or one antennas.
When and in what models will we see these new processors? Qualcomm has confirmed that imoo and Mobvoi will be the first manufacturers to bet on this platform: imoo will launch the Z6 Ultra in 30 days, while Mobvoi will implement the latest Qualcomm in the new Tic Watch Pro.