Items tagged with Snapdragon
LG announced the LG G Pad 8.3 tablet, which seems like a solid-enough device on its own, but the company is marketing it as a companion device to smartphones, and in particular LG G-series smartphones such as the LG G2 (which we reviewed here). The killer companion features include QPair for quick and easy syncing across devices, which offers the ability to view calls, texts, and recently opened apps. The G Pad 8.3 also offers nice multitasking capabilities such as QSlide Function 2.0, which lets you keep up to two apps “floating” over the main screen, and the ability to toggle between up to three open applications with Slide Aside. The Android (4.2.2 Jelly Bean) tablet runs on a...
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The LG G2 is the follow-up to the Optimus G Pro -- which was an excellent phone in its own right. The G2 is part brawn and part brain, and it's actually a nice balance of the two. Qualcomm's 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 is the star of the show, offering more raw horsepower than most other Android phones on the market right now. On paper, it's clear that LG cut virtually no corners in getting the absolute best components within the G2. But they didn't stop there. LG also thought outside of the proverbial box a bit, rethinking where the commonplace volume rocker and power button should be located, considering the ergonomics in a different way than any other phone maker... LG G2 Smartphone Review:...
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In the ever-intensifying smartphone war, clear lines are being drawn. The only two mobile phone manufacturers making any notable profits at present are Apple (with iOS) and Samsung (with Android). Despite the fact that Android as a whole is dominating from a global market share perspective, players such as LG, HTC, Pantech, and Sony are scrapping for market share. The point? Competing with the heralded Galaxy line of phones and phablets is difficult. Crosstown rival LG has historically had something of a quiet battle going with Samsung, and recent moves by the company's mobile division demonstrate that it's not content with playing second fiddle. The LG G2 is the follow-up to the Optimus G Pro...
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There’s another Windows Phone update coming down the pike in the next few months, and among several new features, Microsoft’s Darren Laybourn noted in a blog post that the update is designed in part to make use of larger screens such as those found on phablets. “So the new update paves the way for future Windows Phone devices with 5- and 6-inch touch screens,” he wrote. “The larger, 1080p HD displays on these devices will make Windows Phone even more personal—for example by sporting jumbo-sized Start screens with room for six Live Tiles across instead of four.” This is none too surprising, as rumors of Nokia phablets have been kicking around for a few...
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Nokia is hosting a launch event in Abu Dhabi on October 22nd, and the company is expected to announce a lineup of six new devices, including an accessory that’s “pretty special”, according The Verge’s sources. Among the expected new devices is the purported Nokia Lumia 1520 (Bandit), a six-inch device that will boast a 1080p HD screen, quad-core Snapdragon processor, rear 20MP camera, Qi wireless charging, and a polycarbonate body. Credit: The Verge We should also see Nokia’s “Sirius” Windows RT tablet, a 10-inch device rumored to rock a quad-core Qualcomm 8974 chip with a 1080p HD display, rear 6.7MP Carl Zeiss camera, 2MP front-facing camera, micro...
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Smartphones are getting ridiculous, in a good way. Some of the latest crop offer specs and features that make whatever most of us currently have on hand look like second-rate toys. To wit, Acer announced a phone called the Liquid S2 that promises to capture 4K video. The handset boasts a 6-inch full HD IPS display with a curved glass surface and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (2.2GHz) processor, 13MP rear camera with autofocus and an LED ring flash that shoots 4K video, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of onboard memory, and a 2MP front-facing camera. The rear camera has an 88-degree viewing angle and has BSI sensors for more clarity with low-light photography. It can shoot in 4K as we mentioned, but also...
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AT&T will be selling the Nokia Lumia 925, the successor to the popular Nokia Lumia 920, starting on September 13th for $99.99 with a 2-year contract. The 925 joins the Nokia Lumia 1020, 920, 820, and 520 in AT&T’s lineup, and the black version of the handset will be an AT&T exclusive. The 925 Windows Phone device has a polycarbonate plastic-and-aluminum body and features a 4.5-inch AMOLED WXGA (with curved Gorilla Glass 2), a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 16GB of onboard storage, and an 8.7MP PureView camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, dual LED flash, and optical image stabilization that shoots in 1080p HD. The 2000 mAh battery purports to offer 10.3 hours of talk...
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Hardly a day has gone by since we posted our review of the LG Optimus G Pro, but already LG and Qualcomm have announced an LG Optimus phone with a better, faster, more powerful processor. The companies jointly announced that the upcoming LG Optimus will run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip, as opposed to the LG Optimus G Pro’s Snapdragon 600. LG claims that the quad-core Snapdragon 800 will offer a 75% boost in performance over the Snapdragon S4 Pro, and despite its power, the chip supposedly has excellent battery efficiency. The Snapdragon 800 is built with four Krait 400 CPUs with an enhanced aSMP architecture and the new Adreno 330 GPU. LG Optimus G Pro with Snapdragon 600 One of the...
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It appears that Microsoft is about to refresh its Surface RT hardware; according to Bloomberg, Microsoft has been testing versions of the Surface RT with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips inside instead of the NVIDIA Tegra 3 SoCs it’s been using thus far. This jibes with an earlier report that Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors would power Windows RT 8.1 tablets. The report says that in fact Microsoft will be rolling out new Surface RT tablets with Qualcomm SoCs inside while still offering some versions with the current Tegra 3. Ostensibly, the change will primarily serve to enable mobile broadband; 4G LTE in mobile chips is an area in which Qualcomm shines. Surface RT tablet Although the Surface...
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While the HTC One was built to compete directly with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the iPhone 5, and now that the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini and a smaller, cheaper iPhone are in the works, HTC is set to release a mini version of its own. According to Bloomberg’s two sources “familiar with the matter”, the HTC One Mini (or whatever it will be called) will have a 4.3-inch display, which is a shade smaller that the HTC One’s 4.7-inch screen, and it will have a lower resolution, too. HTC One Further, the mini version will likely have a lower-spec’d Qualcomm SoC than the HTC One’s quad-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600. The sources indicated that the smaller HTC One will be on...
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Windows RT is an OS that we haven't heard a lot about lately. Windows 8.1, on the other hand, has been all over the news. So, how's Microsoft to get RT back into the fold? Partner with Qualcomm, one of the world's most notable producers of high-end mobile chips. This week at Computex, Qualcomm announced plans to work with Microsoft in order to offer Snapdragon 800 processors for Windows RT 8.1. If you aren't familiar, the Snapdragon 800 processor range features an integrated multimode 3G/4G LTE modem and CPU speeds of up to 2.2 GHz per core.Other capabilities include USB 3.0 and support for Windows RT 8.1 features and services. Qualcomm Technologies and Microsoft will continue to work together...
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Japan’s NEC has created a smartphone that actually uses liquid cooling, which is a development that is either awesome or stupid, and we’re not decided as to which it is yet. In any case, the NEC Medias X N-06E smartphone indeed has a water-filled heatpipe that pulls heat away from the device’s processor, apparently dispelling the heat through the phone’s polycarbonate exterior; there’s also a graphene sheet on the motherboard, providing a nice additional heat buffer. The NEC Medias X 06E also features a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro (1.7GHz) chip, 13.1 MP camera, and a 4.7-inch 720p OLED display. With those specs, it’s hard to say if liquid cooling is really...
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After some delays in manufacturing, the highly anticipated HTC One smartphone is officially here. Although this high-end smartphone has not received the same amount of buzz as Samsung’s much-hyped Galaxy S 4, the One has many compelling features that will give Samsung some serious competition among savvy consumers. The HTC One features a full-metal, zero-gap unibody design along with a number of software features that set the phone apart, including a new home screen with HTC BlinkFeed, and HTC BoomSound which combines front-facing stereo speakers with dedicated amplifiers and Beats Audio integration. As the flagship smartphone in HTC’s line-up, the One features a 1.7GHz quad-core...
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We can finally put an end date on the long wait for the Samsung Galaxy S4. According to a trusted source, the much-hyped handset will first land at AT&T on April 26th, and we’re told that it will boast up to 2.5 times the performance of its predecessor, the Galaxy S3, at least in certain benchmarks. AnTuTu was noted as the metric this performance was observed in. The Galaxy S4 will also sport 4GB of RAM and rock a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor. Non-U.S. devices will have just 2GB of RAM, and we’ve heard previously that they will have either the aforementioned Snapdragon chip or a Samsung Exynos 5 Octa inside. This beauty to be available April 26th AT&T...
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If you’re sipping a beverage right now, go ahead and swallow before we give you the price tag for the new Sony Xperia ZL smartphone. Ready? It’s $759.99. If you’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of the Xperia ZL, you can preorder the device on the Sony Store and receive your phone “on or about” April 8th. All that scratch will get you a beautiful and powerful 4G LTE smartphone with Android 4.1 on board that features a near bezel-less 5-inch display (1920x1080), 1.5 GHz Quad Core Snapdragon S4 processor, 2GB of RAM, and up to 16GB of internal storage (up to 32GB with a microSD card). The front-facing camera is 2MP and shoots in 1080p, and the rear camera is...
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While the verdict remains out on which CPU will find itself inside of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S4, a result posted to Browsermark's database today leads us to believe that it's going to become the market-leader - at least where raw CPU performance is concerned. The result references "GT-I9500", which is widely believed to be the internal codename for the S4. The phone scores an impressive 2710, with testing having been conducted using Google Chrome 25. By comparison, the iPhone 5 previously topped Browsermark's list with a score of 2416 (using Safari). Samsung's soon-to-be-previous-flagship Galaxy S III LTE scores 2359. With these results, it appears that Samsung's Galaxy IV will be sitting...
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NVIDIA has not been shy about claiming that its new Tegra 4 processor is the mobile chip to beat, and indeed, looking at the numbers, it’s hard to disagree. At least one person takes issue with that claim, however, and he happens to be the Senior VP of Product Management (Raj Talluri) for NVIDIA competitor Qualcomm, maker of the Snapdragon series of mobile processors. ZTE Grand Memo 2, packing the Snapdragon 800 According to The Verge, Talluri claims that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 can easily defeat the Tegra 4. The chip, he noted, has some impressive highlights, including having an LTE modem on-die and the ability to handle Ultra HD content, and the rest of the specs are no less impressive;...
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Samsung has bravely used its homegrown Exynos processor in its mobile devices, and for the most part that’s been a successful endeavor. Further, it makes sense to keep as much of the manufacturing process in-house, because companies can avoid dealing with third party licensing fees and contracts, can act more quickly to resolve any issues, and exert more control over the actual manufacturing process. However, Samsung appears to be changing its tune on that strategy. According to SamMobile, the company is ditching Exynos for its upcoming Samsung Galaxy S IV phone in favor of a Snapdragon 600 (1.9 GHz) processor. The phone will also reportedly have Full HD SoLux Display instead of AMOLED....
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While the latest and greatest always piques our interest, not every device necessarily has to be a flagship product. At CES this year, Qualcomm introduced two hyper-powered Snapdragon chips for mobile devices. Now, the company is ushering in two more, albeit for lower-end products. Slotting in beneath the Snapdragon 800 and 600, the new Snapdragon 400 and 200 are being produced to "take Qualcomm’s technology leadership into the mid-tier and entry level smartphone segments." Snapdragon 400 processor hits at the mid-range, with options including: Dual Krait CPUs running at up to 1.7GHz per core featuring Asynchronous Symmetric Multiprocessing (aSMP), which delivers peak performance while...
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Earlier today, we posted some leaked photos of the upcoming HTC One handset (which was known as the HTC M7 when we first caught wind of the phone last year), and now we have the official details on (and official photos of) the device. The HTC One is the company’s new flagship phone, and it boasts some attractive specs. Available in black or silver with an aluminum unibody, the phone is 4G LTE enabled and has a 1.7GHz Snapdragon quad-core processor, 4.7-inch full HD (1080p) display, 2GB RAM, and 32GB or 64GB storage capacities. There are dual speakers on the front of the phone with a built-in amplifier for better sound output, and the audio experience is further enhanced by HTC BoomSound...
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ASUS announced the successor to the PadFone, the aptly named PadFone 2, at an event in Milan. The 4.7-inch (1280x720 HD) phone--which is close to being a phablet by itself--docks in the PadFone 2 Station to become a 10.1-inch tablet. The PadFone 2 sports a quad-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip, an impressive 2GB of RAM, and a 13MP camera that features 100-shot burst mode and 1080p or 720p HD (30fps or 60fps, respectively). There’s up to 64GB of storage on board, which is paired with two years of free 50GB ASUS WebStorage. Storage capacity between the PadFone 2 and PadFone 2 Station is shared, and the devices will also share a data plan. ASUS is also proud of the audio quality of...
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What does DISH Network and Qualcomm have in common? A lot, evidently. DISH today announced a fairly major collaboration with Qualcomm, which will enable support of satellite-based communications in Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 platform, the world's first dual-core solution with an integrated multi-mode 3G/LTE modem, for use in future DISH wireless devices. The new satellite air interface technology developed by Qualcomm is a 3G-based standard referred to as Enhanced Geostationary Air Link (EGAL). This initiative will enable the development of mobile handsets and devices for DISH that can operate in both terrestrial and satellite modes in the 2 GHz/AWS-4 band. What's that mean, exactly? It...
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