New MediaTek chips end the most annoying thing about dual smartphones and unlock new capabilities

Your smartphones are as good as the chipsets inside. Qualcomm, MediaTek, Intel and Spreadtrum and Samsung are top names in the chipset market, and these processors power smartphones in the budget, mid-range and high-end categories.

The competition in the mobile CPU division is as intense as the smartphone battle. Now, MediaTek has upped the ante with the launch of two new mid-range processors in its ever-expanding Helio P range. The Helio P23 and Helio P30 bring value to mid-range phones and it is up to OEMs to take advantage of the new capabilities.

Before we jump into the core technicalities of the MTK P23 and P30, let's give you an insight on how consumers benefit from these chipsets.

A boon for dual SIM smartphones

Firstly, Helio P23 is a gift to the changing digital age of 4G VoLTE. This new chipset delivers the "world's first dual SIM, dual 4G VoLTE/ ViLTE support." In other words, you no longer need to swap your SIM cards to use high-speed 4G with voice over LTE bands. Currently, mid-range smartphones have 4G VoLTE support on primary SIM card slot, and the secondary is limited to 4G or sometimes even 3G use. That ends with Helio P23.

Camera gets better

MediaTek Helio P23 and P30 come equipped with dual camera support. Although, we have seen mid-range phones like Moto G5S Plus come with dual cameras, the new MediaTek chips will make it a standard.

The Helio P23 supports 13 + 13-megapixel dual camera configurations, or a single 24-megapixel sensor, while the Helio P30 supports up to 16+16 megapixel dual camera configurations. But MTK is making imaging better with integrated Imagiq 2.0 technology that reduces noise, grain and chromatic aberration. In addition, there's also CCU, Camera Control Unit, hardware that will make sure you won't miss any shot with "auto exposure convergence speed up to twice as fast as competitors - ensures users never miss the moment they want to capture," the company explained.

The Helio P30 has some extra features on the optics, such as a 500MHz digital signal processor paired with the Image Signal Processors called the Vision Processing Unit (VPU). The VPU can help with better real-time image and video Bokeh, boost performance and reduce power.

MTK P23 and P30 chips are future-ready

The new MediaTek chipsets are equipped with 4G LTE WorldMode modem, which can deliver Cat-7/13 speeds at 300Mbps download and 150Mbps upload, superior performance and optimise power. There's a TAS 2.0 smart antenna for ideal signal quality.

Both SoCs are based on octa-core ARM Cortex-A53 processors clocking up to 2.3GHz, Mali G71 MP2 GPU, clocking at 770MHz in the Helio P23 and 950MHz in the Helio P30. This setup translates to a premium performance. As for the RAM, both chips can take up to 6GB.

When will they be available?

MediaTek P30 and P23 will be available in the fourth quarter of this year. While the P30 will be available globally, the P23 will only be launched in China initially. Global availability of MTK P23 is unknown at the moment.