MediaTek supplies chips to those smartphone makers that target the mid-range market. This niche is divided into several categories as well. Fortunately, MediaTek has SoCs for all of them. This doesn’t mean only this company provides chips for the manufacturers. Say, Qualcomm has recently launched its own models for this market. Those chips are named the Snapdragon 660 and Snapdragon 630 . If the performance provided by the latter doesn’t differ from its predecessor, the same is not true for the Snapdragon 660. Qualcomm uses 14nm process node for it unlike the Snapdragon 653 that uses 28nm process technology. Thus there is a real gap between these two chips. When it comes to MediaTek and its chips, we know this is the first company launched a deca-core processor known as the Helio X30. This chip still uses 10nm process node like its competitors in face of the Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895 . But it’s rumored the company is working on a 7nm process node chip as well. Thus MediaTek is gaining momentum. In this sense, it’s quite interesting to take a look at the new SoCs designed for the super mid-range market. They are named as the Helio P23 and Helio P30.

The Helio P23 and Helio P30 were launched on August 29 at a special conference organized by MediaTek. They are made for the mid-range market, and they are considered as the best options for this niche. There should be various smartphones packed with this processor that will be able to compete with many top-notch models. To understand why the company thinks so we should get acquainted with their key features and architecture.

Helio P23/30 Features

Both models have eight cores carrying a model number of Cortex-A53. They are clocked up to 2.3GHz and they support LPDDR4x memory. No matter how many commonalities are there between these chips, because they differ a lot in terms of graphics. Though the come with an ARM Mail G71 MP2 GPU, the P23 is clocked at 770MHz, while the P30 is clocked at 950MHz.

Thanks to the process technology improvements the Helio P23 provides 10% better performance and 15% less power consumption in comparison to the Helio P20. As for the Helio P30, it provides 25% better performance than the Helio P25, while the power consumption is decreased by 8%.

The MediaTek Helio P23 and Helio P30 have got too many improvements concerning multimedia and camera features. The P23 supports for dual-camera of 13MP as well as a virtual depth of field effect. The Helio P30 supports 16MP dual-camera, optical zoom and real time depth of field blurring effect.

All the aforementioned features have been improved at a hardware level. But MediaTek has done a great job in terms of software as well. It uses its own MediaTek Imagiq 2.0 technology. The aforementioned FOD effects are provided due to this technology mainly. Plus, Helio P23 and P30 comes with a hardware-based camera control unit the automatic exposure convergence speed of which outruns by 2 times in comparison to its rivals.

Full screen is a mainstream nowadays. So it’s quite reasonable the Helio P23/30 support this feature as well.

Lastly, the Helio P23/30 have got a huge upgrade in terms of connectivity. They support up to 300Mbps/150MBps download/upload speed as well as dual-card dual VoLTE / ViLTE for the first time in the industry providing a faster and more consistent connectivity experience for dual card users.

Helio P23/30 Market Positioning

About two years ago MediaTek put forward the concept of a super mid-market. It began designing P series chips for this niche mainly. This is a great plan because in recent years the prices for the mid-range smartphones have raised from 1000 yuan ($152) to 1500-1900 yuan ($228-290). Users from this niche are very concerned about multimedia performance such as camera, screen, and performance smoothness. Therefore, P series chips are more focused on system optimization rather than on benchmark results. Support for faster memory speed, full screen, dual-camera, dual SIM connectivity options clearly shows the manufacturer is trying to meet the challenge.

MediaTek’s current market can be divided into three. The first one is the Chinese market, which is the main market for MediaTek. The second is the emerging market. Emerging markets have changed dramatically over the past few years, and handset demand has grown rapidly. Taking into account the price requirements in these markets, the Helio P series and some low-end products will be the main force there. The third market is the overseas operator market. But the requirements in this market differ much from other markets. So, MediaTel should pay more attention. I mean, smartphones are mainly sold via carriers in this market. That’s why manufacturersare in a deep cooperation with the operators. Say, MediaTek has cooperated with HTC and Sony to make and sell phones in Europe via carriers, while it cooperated with T-Mobile to design phones for the North America.

MediaTek and Emerging Technologies

MediaTek believes that smartphones will slowly move towards personal. The only feature that can understand your preferences and provide performance according to user’s habits is artificial intelligence (AI). But AI requires a lot of computing, which is a real problem for manufacturers, because it will require more storage. Seems the clouds should solve this issue, but there raises another problem – cloud computing will eat a lot of consumer traffic, and security is also worth considering. In order to solve this problem, MediaTek will try to put AI technology at the SoC side.

Wrap Up

That’s not a secret MediaTek is in a deep cooperation with Meizu. Most of the devices carrying this brand are packed with Helio family chips. Say, the latest true flagship of the company dubbed as the Meizu Pro 7 ( Plus ) is packed with the Helio X30 deca-core chip. It’s rumored the next model called the Meizu MX7 will sport the Helio P30 octa-core chip. This means the MediaTek Helio P23 and Helio P30 chips and the smartphones packed with them will be among top 5 models.