MWC: Mediatek’s unannounced chips leak via Ulefone stand

The Mediatek Helio P60 is the one big announcement for the chipmaker at MWC 2018, being a rather compelling chip for mid-range and upper mid-range smartphones.

Featuring a dedicated AI chip, 4+4 cores (heavyweight A73 and lightweight A53) and a decent Mali G72 MP3 GPU, the P60 might be the chip to find its way into scores of major phones below the flagship level.

However, there have been rumours regarding the Helio P40 and Helio P70 chips. And this week, at Chinese manufacturer Ulefone’s stand at MWC, we see two phones packing a P40 and P70. Of course, these chips haven’t even been announced by Mediatek yet. So what makes them different?

 

Details are scant right now, but the Ulefone stand confirms that both chips will be octacore designs, with the Ulefone T2 Pro packing the P70 and the standard T2 offering a P40 chipset. Interestingly enough, the T2 Pro spec sheet also claims that it will support an in-display fingerprint scanner.

Other noteworthy specs for the T2 Pro include a large 6.7-inch 19:9 display (full HD+), 21MP+13MP dual camera setup, 16MP selfie shooter, 8GB of RAM and a 5000mAh battery. Meanwhile the standard T2 offers a similar dual-camera setup, a 13MP selfie shooter, a smaller 6.18-inch 18:9 display, 6GB of RAM, rear fingerprint scanner and a 4400mAh battery.

The initial P40 and P70 rumours claimed similar 4+4 octacore (A73 plus A53) layouts, as well as 12nm designs for power efficiency. Lending credence to the latter claim perhaps, is our interview with Mediatek CTO Kevin Jou.

We asked whether we would see cheaper 10nm chips coming from Mediatek in 2018 (as opposed to flagship level 10nm chips).

“Probably not… You’re gonna see more 12nm chips coming,” Jou answered.

Disclosure: Hadlee Simons was a guest of Huawei at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Check out our comprehensive MWC 2018 section over here.