I believe that most of my friends have heard of the name Kirin 990. It refers to one of the flagship chips of the HiSilicon Kirin series developed by Huawei , but in the early days, 5G just came out. During that period, Huawei made two different versions of the Kirin 990 chip.
One is the Kirin 990 chip, which does not have a 5G baseband. Manufacturers can use it on 4G mobile phones, such as Huawei Mate30 4G version and Huawei nova6 4G version. It can also be used on 5G mobile phones, but it must be plugged in by Huawei. The Balong 5000 baseband is sufficient. Models such as Huawei nova6, Honor V30, and Honor play4T Pro are all so-called 5G mobile phones that use the Kirin 990 plug-in Balong 5000 baseband to achieve 5G communication.
Then the other one is Kirin 990 5G, which is based on TSMC’s 7nm EUV process and integrates the Baron 5000 baseband inside the chip. It is also called Kirin 990 5G SOC. This chip is used in many flagship phones of Huawei. Such as Huawei Mate30 5G version, Mate30 Pro, Huawei P40 series and Honor V30 Pro, etc.
Compared with the Kirin 990, the Kirin 990 5G not only has more advanced technology, but also integrates the 5G baseband inside, so the power consumption is relatively slightly lower than the external 5G Kirin 990. Well, many friends may have questions. Apart from the difference in whether the two chips integrate the Balong 5000 baseband, it seems that the parameters and architecture are the same. What is the difference in use?
It has been a while since I switched from nova6 5G version to Honor V30 Pro. The former is a mobile phone equipped with Kirin 990 + Barong 5000 baseband, and the latter is a mobile phone equipped with Kirin 990 5G chip. During use, I found What are the differences between these two chips?
First of all, power consumption and heat generation are different. If everyone uses the 5G network to play the game " King of Glory " and turns on the 60 frames + extreme image quality mode, after one game, I found that nova6 5G consumes more power and generates more heat. Some, because the battery of nova6 5G must not only power the Kirin 990, but also separately power the Balong 5000 baseband. Both chips are inside the fuselage, so there are two heat sources on the motherboard.
The Kirin 990 5G chip equipped with Honor V30 Pro does not need to supply power to the baseband separately. The only heat source on the motherboard is the chip.
At the same time, our users must have also discovered that the prices of mobile phones equipped with these two different chips are different. The model equipped with Kirin 990 + plug-in Balong 5000 baseband is always cheaper, while the model equipped with Kirin 990 + plug-in Balong 5000 baseband is always cheaper. Mobile phones with 990 5G chips are always more expensive, and the price difference will be between 300 and 500.
In order to reflect the differences between the two models, manufacturers will definitely treat them differently in terms of optimization, including optimization of mobile networks. Therefore, users will be willing to spend hundreds more to choose Kirin for a better experience. 990 5G chip mobile phone, this is the subtlety of Huawei's knife skills.
For example, when I was using the nova6 5G version, if 5G was turned on, I found that it was always switching between 5G and 4G in the background, causing me to sometimes have to wait for payment when I went to the vegetable market to buy food. After a long time, I simply turned off 5G and used 4G directly. At first I thought this situation was caused by the unstable 5G signal coverage here, but later I found out after switching to Honor V30 Pro that there was no such frequent switching between 5G and 4G when 5G was also turned on. of.
And one of the phone cards I use is an telecom card. There are also differences when using the 4G network. When the Nova6 5G version uses China Telecom's 4G network, it does not support VoLTE high-definition voice calls. If it does not have this function, the mobile data network will be disconnected when we make a call, including the inability to send and receive WeChat messages and share. The WiFi hotspot that comes out cannot access the Internet and so on. The Honor V30 Pro supports VoLTE function when using China Telecom’s 4G network.
Perhaps this does not mean that the functions of the two chips are different, but it should be certain that the manufacturers have optimized the models of the two chips differently, which leads to different results in use.
So if we users want to buy a second-hand 5G Huawei mobile phone , if conditions permit, we should try our best to choose a model equipped with an integrated 5G Kirin chip. Of course, models equipped with an external 5G baseband Kirin chip , except for the optimization difference, the power consumption and heat generation are slightly higher, there are no major problems, and it is completely acceptable.
