MediaTek ‘Dimensity 700’ Is Out and It’s the Cheapest 5G Chip in the World

• MediaTek silently releases the world’s cheapest 5G chip, lowering the entry bar even further.
• The new chip called ‘Dimensity 700’ is still a powerful one that can offer a well-balanced performance all around.
• Smartphone manufacturers could bring 5G connectivity to the mainstream if they opt to use the new chip.

MediaTek has further lowered the bar of accessing 5G technologies by stealing the title of the most inexpensive 5G held by ‘Dimensity 720’ and crowning the ‘Dimensity 700’ as the new king. Since this chip is the lowest in the “700” series, there can be no cheaper 5G chip in the portfolio of the Taiwanese semiconductor company any time soon.

The new chip comes with support for global dual 5G SIM, “UltraSave” network detection and mode awareness, C-DRX mode, dual standby readiness, VoNR, 5G-CA (2CC) for better coverage and performance, and 2.77 Gbps of download speeds. The carrier aggregation tech is something new at this price range, as Qualcomm isn’t offering it on its “entry-level” 5G chips.

Besides the connectivity tech, the ‘Dimensity 700’ comes with support for 90Hz refresh-rate displays (up to 2520x1080), 64MP camera sensors, night-mode and bokeh AI enhancements, and support for multiple voice assistants.

As for the power, there are four Arm Cortex A76 (2.2GHz) paired with four power-efficient A55 cores (2GHz), while graphics are taken care of by the Arm Mali-G57 MC2 (950 MHz). RAM support is LPDDR4x at 2133MHz and for 12GB of size, ROM can be a two-lane UFS 2.2, Bluetooth version is 5.1, and there’s also Wi-Fi 5.

All in all, this is a chip that covers the vast majority of users out there, and while it isn’t moving on the bleeding edge of technology, it does come somewhere higher than what we would consider being plainly “adequate.”

The ‘Dimensity 700’ release creates a first-class opportunity for smartphone manufacturers to build low-cost devices around it and promote them as “entry-level” 5G phones. Only a few months back, Nokia was promoting the 8.3, a device that was launched for $599 as the most inexpensive way to enter the amazing new world of 5G connectivity.

Soon, more manufacturers joined that game, with Motorola launching the “One 5G” at $450, OnePlus Nord coming at $399, and RealMe X50 5G pushing the cost down to $350 using a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G. With the Dimensity 700, we could see 5G smartphones becoming available at $250 or even less. That is as long as the vendors pick up the chip and use it.