Announced as a "follow-on" to the Snapdragon 675 SoC, which was a mid-range SoC released back in 2018 and the same one which was behind some popular smartphones like the Redmi Note 7 Pro, Samsung Galaxy A70(s) and M40, and a couple of Vivo phones, the new Snapdragon 678 SoC promise overall performance upgrade, high-speed connectivity, immersive entertainment, better photography and videography abilities, all while maintaining the long battery life.

Octa-core Kryo 460 CPU, Adreno 612 GPU, and X12 LTE modem

Although it comes with the same octa-core Kryo 460 CPU and the same Adreno 612 GPU as on the Snapdragon 675, Qualcomm has raised the performance bar on Snapdragon 678 by pushing the CPU up to 2.2GHz and, although not detailed, could have a higher GPU clock as well.

In case you missed it, Kryo 460 is a mix of two high-performance Cortex-A76 and six Cortex-A55 cores.

Qualcomm also notes it optimized the Snapdragon 678 SoC and its Adreno GPU for Unity, Messiah, NeoX, and Unreal Engine 4, among other top games.

As noted, the Snapdragon 678 is paired up with a Snapdragon X12 LTE modem, so no 5G support here, but it does offer LTE Cat 12 up to 600Mbps (3 x 20 MHz carrier aggregation, up to 256-QAM) for download, and LTE Cat 13 up to 150 Mbps, Qualcomm Snapdragon Upload+ (2 x 20 MHz carrier aggregation, up to 64-QAM) for upload.

Qualcomm also used Hexagon 685 DSP with Vector eXtensions (HVX), as well as Qualcomm Spectra 250L ISP, which provides support for 192 MP main camera capture, dual cameras with up to 16 MP, 5x optical zoom, portrait mode, and much better photos thanks to Hexagon 685 DSP.

“We are uniquely positioned to support OEMs in delivering the next generation of devices with in-demand features and performance,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Snapdragon 678 brings advanced mobile capabilities for daily entertainment at lightning-fast speeds over reliable connections and long-lasting battery life for consumers worldwide.”

We are quite sure that some of the first phones with Snapdragon 678 should start to appear early next year.