In the smartphone market, the two common chipset manufacturers are Qualcomm and MediaTek. The Snapdragon processors by Qualcomm are the most popular. Although, MediaTek also has a wide range of processors. So, the question is which company should you opt for Qualcomm Snapdragon or MediaTek. I have separated this article into two segments. One is for the mid-range market and the other is for high end (flagship) market.
Mid-Range Market
Talking about the mid-range market, a ton of new devices are launched every other day. In 2019, I saw a lot of MediaTek-powered devices in the mid-range market. They were primarily from the MediaTek Helio G lineup. The Helio G90T was unveiled last year with the Redmi Note 8 Pro. It was a surprise to see how good the chipset performed in gaming. 60 frames per second on PUBG Mobile is a piece of cake for the Helio G90T chipset.
Later, MediTek launched watered-down versions of the chipset including Helio G70, Helio G80, and Helio G85. On the other hand, there is Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 and 700 series for the mid-range market. We saw Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G, 732G, and Snapdragon 662 as-well. These chipsets were not really special. They are behind the Helio G lineup in gaming. However, in productivity tasks, the Snapdragon takes the lead.
Go for MediaTek for Gaming, Otherwise Snapdragon
Hence, the answer is straight forward. Go for MediaTek Helio G-series chipset if gaming is your main concern. For day to day tasks, Snapdragon should be the one to go for. Since, the stability, GCam support, and Custom ROM support are better on Snapdragon. I haven’t included Snapdragon 765G on my list, since it is not available everywhere and you may count it in the upper mid-range tier.
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Flagship Market
Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 series is the most popular for Android flagships. We have seen the success of Snapdragon 865 and now the Snapdragon 888 has launched. On the other hand, MediaTek was having no flagship chipset in the global market till now.
You may have heard of Dimensity chipsets. They are powerful and comes with 5G connectivity. Though, they were only available in China. Now, they are going global with the launch of Realme X7 Pro in Thailand. Hence, we can expect good flagship chipsets in the coming year from MediaTek. Till then, Qualcomm Snapdragon is the king in the flagship market.
We did not count Exynos and Kirin chipsets. Exynos from Samsung are mostly used on Samsung’s phones. And it is hard to find other manufacturers using Exynos chipsets. Kirin on the other hand is very powerful. According to AnTuTU benchmarks, the Kirin 985 topped the mid-range list for November 2020. But due to the Google services ban and limited smartphones, I decided to compare the two easily available chipset manufacturers. Let us know your opinions in the comments section below.
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As a customer, I prefer Mediatek due to anticompetitive practices of Qualcomm. This anticompetitive behavior caused global ban of Huawei Kirin, when it became a strategic thread to Qualcom. Dimensity 800-series offers 5G in the middle range for the price of 4G Qualcomm equivalent.
The article does not count for price difference, and more expensive Qualcomm products are compared to cheaper Mediatek.
I still use Kirin 980, the last one before ban, with Google support and will upgrade to Mediatek Dimensity when will need 5G.
Customer votes with his pocket, that's why I don't buy products from companies who does not play fair.
If MediaTek or Huawei started releasing usable source code for their chips and mainlining it, enthusiasts would use it and recommend it to relatives. I would for sure like to support other manufacturers, but they intentionally cripple their products (so you can read about the brickfest with new xiaomi mediatek phones). If they don't change this, I won't buy other cpus (apart from QC) and won't recommend it to anyone. Their choice.
I love mediatak because there cipchet price is very low but powerful.
On parameters such as efficiency, performance aspect as well as the price value, Mediatek undoubtedly has an edge over its Snapdragon counterparts and I would opt for the same any day