If the most powerful SoCs are promoted more by manufacturers, their distribution volume is much lower than the chips aimed at the entry and mid-range. It is precisely this segment that MediaTek is targeting with the Dimensity 1080, which has just been made official.
The Dimensity 920 equipped the Realme 9 Pro+ 5G. © The Digital
This chipset engraved in 6 nm is the successor of the Dimensity 920, an efficient SoC which had proved convincing on models such as the Vivo V23 5G, the Mi 11i or the Realme 9 Pro +. These smartphones offered quite reasonable multitasking and gaming performance over their price range.
A little facelift for the photo
Still manufactured by the Taiwanese TSMC, the Dimensity 1080 has a structure very similar to that of the Dimensity 920. It is thus composed of two main ARM Cortex-A78 CPU cores clocked at up to 2.6 GHz (2.5 GHz on the Dimensity 920) and six ARM Cortex-A55 cores working at up to 2 GHz. On the GPU side, it is still the Mali-G68 MC4 graphics processor that we find at the controls. We should therefore not see any significant improvements in play. The firm promises, on the other hand, better energy management, which will perhaps have an effect on the general endurance of smartphones equipped with the SoC.
The Dimensity 1080 supports sensors up to 200 megapixels. © MediaTek
The chip is capable of supporting Full HD+ screens with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. It can accommodate LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage memory. Connectivity is not left out since it supports 5G, wifi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. Everything a good mid-range smartphone can offer in 2022/23.
The chip stands out on the subject of the photo. The Dimensity 1080 is thus capable of supporting sensors up to 200 megapixels (against 108 megapixels previously) thanks to an image processor called Imagiq. It is also possible to film in 4K HDR, although this is not something new inherent in this model.
We can therefore expect to see the Dimensity 1080 on many smartphones in 2023 as 200 megapixel sensors become more popular. According to MediaTek, the first equipped mobiles should even be marketed in the last quarter of 2022. Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 12 could also be one of the first concerned.