MediaTek vs Snapdragon 2022: Which is Better?

Abhishek Kumar
4 min readNov 2, 2021

The year 2021 is breathing its last and 2022 is about to get into action pretty soon. A lot of things have changed and talking about technology, it sees new changes every single day.

In such a rapidly-changing process, smartphones and smartphone technology too have seen immense changes and smartphones are getting much better and more affordable than ever with the latest technologies.

However, when we look at the smartphone market, a question that has always been the same is, “Which is better, MediaTek or Snapdragon?”

While smartphones have changed, smartphone chipsets have become more and more sophisticated, but this comparison between MediaTek and Snapdragon is always a hot subject in the market and is likely to remain for a long period of time.

However, you would agree that the scenario has changed quite a bit in the last few years and you can say that the tables have turned. Once, Snapdragon enjoyed a monopoly in the smartphone chipset market, but now, it is pretty much limited to only the flagship segment and is struggling even in the aspect.

What has changed in these few years?

Well, just like technology, a lot of things changed, and read along to know how MediaTek actually overpowered Snapdragon in the smartphone market across the world:

How MediaTek Became a Household Name?

A few years back, people looked down upon MediaTek and had questions like, “Why is MediaTek bad?” or “Is MediaTek good for the long term?”. This is because MediaTek processors had this reputation of heating in the smartphones and they also did not reveal the source codes for their chipsets.

However, as time passed, MediaTek started following the advice of the users and brought more and more improvements in their chipsets.

The launch of the gaming series of chipsets from MediaTek was like a game-changing move and it was the very first thing that offered MediaTek chipsets the identity that they intended.

Later, people demanded longevity with the chipsets and they brought the powerful 7nm chipsets in the market with the MediaTek Dimensity 5G chipset series. As of now, all the MediaTek 5G chipsets are 7nm or less in size and most of them have their own inbuilt 5G modem.

Against this, many of the Snapdragon 5G chipsets are 8nm in size as well and many of them do not have an inbuilt 5G modem. These were a few aspects where MediaTek matched pace with the technology and Snapdragon started lagging.

As a result, MediaTek became a premier choice of people in the market, and those who asked questions such as why is MediaTek bad, are now using the MediaTek-powered smartphones themselves.

For proof, you can see that MediaTek has now the highest share in the market as far as chipsets powering the smartphones are concerned and MediaTek chipsets power about 41 percent of the smartphones across the world.

Besides, now MediaTek enjoys a complete monopoly in the market as far as budget 4G and 5G smartphones are concerned.

So this is enough to tell that the tables have really turned in the last few years.

MediaTek vs Snapdragon: Which is Better for Future?

There have been several predictions and assumptions relating to MediaTek and Snapdragon, where most people are considering MediaTek as the AMD of the smartphone market against Intel.

But talking about the future, MediaTek and Qualcomm are about to bring their 4nm 5G chipsets into the market. Yes, both these 4nm 5G chipsets are expected to launch very soon and while MediaTek is about to launch the MediaTek Dimensity 2000 processor, Qualcomm is gearing to bring the Snapdragon 898 processor.

And as you can expect, there would be a lot of competition between the two chipsets. However, while a few leaked features and specifications of the chipsets have been known, they suggest that the MediaTek Dimensity 2000 chipset could be better than Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 chipset.

If this is true, it would be a piece of bad news for Qualcomm Snapdragon and it may get wiped from the market from even the flagship segment. MediaTek has been working hard on its chipsets and looking at the current trend, the answer to the question, “Which is better, Snapdragon vs MediaTek?”, might be in the favor of MediaTek.

So the changing technology and changing times have only one suggestion for all. If you do not match pace with the changes, you are bound to see a lag. MediaTek did well with time and now it is reaping the benefits.

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Abhishek Kumar

A Passionate Writer with love for Technology. I love discovering new gadgets and writing about smartphones. However, do not let technology take away your sleep.