Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 just brought 90fps gaming to budget Android phones
Your next $400 Android phone just got a lot more interesting
📲 Qualcomm is beefing up budget phones with two new SoCs
🎮 The Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 should bring 90fps gaming to budget phones with a 77% more powerful GPU
📈 The Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 brings 21% better GPU performance alongside the Adaptive Performance Engine
📅 Both chips should be seen in new phones starting in the second half of 2026
Qualcomm has announced two new mobile SoCs that aim to deliver smooth and slick operation to your next affordable phone.
The new Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 chips promise to bring a smoother experience to cheaper handsets, while offering “stronger performance and extended battery life.”
The headline feature on both SoCs is Snapdragon Smooth UI, which the brand says delivers 20% faster app launches and 18% less screen stutter on the 6 Gen 5 chip, and 43% faster app launches and 25% less screen stutter on the 4 Gen 5.
The 4 Gen 5 also beefs up the chip’s GPU performance by 77% to bring 90FPS gameplay to the Snapdragon 4-series chips for the first time. So your next affordable phone could have beefier gaming performance than ever before.
As for the 6 Gen 5, this is obviously a step up from the 4 Gen 5, and Qualcomm is touting 21% better GPU performance than the last gen for smoother gameplay and beefier performance. It also introduces the Adaptive Performance Engine 4.0 to aid “smooth, long‑lasting play”.
The higher-end chip adds support for AI-powered camera features, such as Night Vision for better low-light photography, up to 32MP photos, and 100x digital zoom for reach.
Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 will come to devices from Honor and Redmi. Meanwhile, 4 Gen 5 is coming to Oppo, realme, and Redmi handsets. Both should be available in the second half of 2026.
Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.