Just yesterday, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 732G SoC, featuring a few improvements over a decent predecessor. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G is expected to power a fair few smartphones in the mid-range segment. Not to be left behind, MediaTek has now launched the new Helio G95 SoC that also builds up on its decent predecessor.

The new MediaTek Helio G95 SoC is an extension of the same features that we have seen on the previous Helio G90 and Helio G90T SoC from MediaTek. It's surprisingly difficult to figure out what is new on this SoC, and from the looks of it, this is a minor improvement only. The only improvement we could spot over the Helio G90T is that the Helio G95 comes with a higher boost speed on the GPU, with the ARM Mali-G76 MC4 now being able to operate at up to 900MHz compared to the 800MHz ceiling from the predecessor. Consequently, MediaTek is boasting of "up to 8%" increase in GPU benchmark scores from the G90T. There's also a claim of "up to 5%" increase in CPU benchmark scores, but we could not find a consequent change in specifications that would explain how this increase materialized.

With all of this being said, the MediaTek Helio G95 might appear underwhelming. But from personal experience using a Helio G90T smartphone for a while as a replacement to the flagships that I usually use, the predecessor was a very good SoC in terms of its performance. With the G95, MediaTek is not attempting to fix what isn't broken - it's a safe bet on a good SoC.

Specifications

MediaTek Helio G90T

MediaTek Helio G95

CPU

  • 2x ARM Cortex-A76 up to 2.05GHz +
  • 6x ARM Cortex-A55 up to 2GHz
  • 2x ARM Cortex-A76 up to 2.05GHz +
  • 6x ARM Cortex-A55 up to 2GHz

GPU

ARM Mali-G76 3EEMC4 up to 800MHz

ARM Mali-G76 3EEMC4 up to 900MHz

Camera

  • 3x ISP
  • 64MP @22.5fps
  • 24+16MP @30fps
  • 3x ISP
  • 64MP @22.5fps
  • 48MP @ 30fps
  • 24+16MP @30fps

AI

2x MediaTek APU up to 750MHz

2x MediaTek APU up to 750MHz

Voice Wakeup

Dual wakeup word

Dual wakeup word

Memory

LPDDR4x up to 10GB, 2133MHz (4,266 GT/s effective)

LPDDR4x up to 10GB, 2133MHz (4,266 GT/s effective)

Storage

UFS 2.1; eMMC 5.1

UFS 2.1; eMMC 5.1

Display

Up to 2400 x 1080, Full HD+, 21:9

Up to 2520 x 1080, Full HD+, 21:9

Display Refresh Rate

Up to 90Hz

Up to 90Hz

Modem

4G LTE Cat-12 (DL) / Cat-13 (UL) (FDD/TDD), 4x4 MIMO, 3CA, 256QAM, HUPE, IMS (VoLTE/ViLTE/WFC), eMBMS, Dual 4G VoLTE (DSDS), Global Bands, TAS 2.0

4G LTE Cat-12 (DL) / Cat-13 (UL) (FDD/TDD), 4x4 MIMO, 3CA, 256QAM, HUPE, IMS (VoLTE/ViLTE/WFC), eMBMS, Dual 4G VoLTE (DSDS), Global Bands, TAS 2.0

To tie it together, the MediaTek Helio G95 is based on a 12nm process, with 2x Cortex-A76 cores clocked @2.05Ghz  and 6x Cortex-A55 cores. This is complemented by the ARM Mali G76 3EEMC4 GPU. Other features for the G95 include up to 10GB of LPDDR4X RAM clocked at up to 2133MHz. The SoC also supports up to 64MP single camera or 24MP plus 16MP dual camera configurations, along with the presence of pixel-binning support, and 240fps slo-mo, as well as AI facial detection. The chip also integrates dual wake-up word support, allowing phones to build in support for listening to more than one trigger word simultaneously. For networking, the series supports Cat-12 4G LTE modem with 3X CA and 4X4 MIMO technology. The Helio G95 also continues to feature the MediaTek HyperEngine game technology, boasting of gaming-centric features such as a networking engine, a rapid response engine, a resource management engine, a picture quality engine, call and data concurrency, and dual Wi-Fi connection. You can read more about these features in our G90 series announcement.

We expect to see smartphones from the new Helio G95 launching in key markets in the coming weeks, targeting the mid-range segment primarily.