Newer silicon boosts GPU, ISP, memory speeds, among other improvements At Mobile World Congress last month we met some of the first smartphones running Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips, including new flagships from Sony and Samsung. The Xperia Z2 and Galaxy S5 both sport Snapdragon 801 processors, at 2.3 and 2.5GHz respectively. But what, besides CPU clock speed, separates the 801 from the...
Using Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors, transmit pen and ink drawings to your tablet in real-time The stylus never died, no matter what any CEO tried to tell us. In fact, they have continued to improve and new ideas and technology are pushing them to the spotlight in ways we never would have imagined a few years ago. Like Qualcomm's new Ultra Sound Notepad tech. I'm a big fan of...
Chipmaker Qualcomm has announced a new addition to its mid-to-entry-level chipset lineup, the Snapdragon 410. The new SoC supports 64-bit processing (a technology debuted in mobile on the iPhone 5s) and "world mode" 4G LTE capable of supporting "all major modes and frequency bands." It's targeted at devices around the $150 price point shipping in the second half of 2014 — so think the...
Faster LTE speeds and a more advanced CPU for Samsung's upgraded GS4 We managed to track down Samsung's LTE-Advanced-capable, Snapdragon 800-powered Galaxy S4 (GT-i9506) last month at IFA 2013, but until now there's been little in the way of official info from Samsung on the device. Today press releases have been issued by Samsung Sweden, and the handset has popped up on the company's...
It appears there's a successor to Samsung's quirky W789 "Hennessy" handset on the way. Chinese certification authority TENAA has published images and other details of the unannounced Samsung "SM-W2014" — another Asia-bound flip phone from the Korean manufacturer. The device, which looks a lot like earlier Samsung forays into the world of "smart" flip phones, packs the latest Qualcomm...
OK, folks. This is gonna be fun. We're teaming up with Qualcomm to give away a pair of Mobile Development Platform devices with Snapdragon 800. That's the latest and greatest Snapdragon that you're going to start seeing in retail devices in the coming months, in Android smartphones as well as tablets. And that's what you'll be entering to win here. We've got one smartphone and one...
LG just dropped a little something in our inbox, giving advance warning of an "international media event" going down Aug. 7 in New York City. We're suckers for international media events, especially if they're in our backyard. What to expect? There's a pretty good possibility we'll see that "successor" to the Optimus G that both LG and Qualcomm were teasing just yesterday, with its...
LG and Qualcomm tonight announced that the follow-up to 2012's LG Optimus G flagship smartphone will use the Snapdragon 800 processor. The as-yet unnamed phone (it's not been publicly announced, anyway) is expected to be announced later this year. The continued partnership isn't unexpected -- the original Optimus G was one of the first out of the gate with the Snapdragon S4 Pro. The...
Qualcomm has seemingly out of nowhere released Snapdragon BatteryGuru, an app to help users with devices that have Snapdragon processors make the most out of their batteries. The app has some pretty lofty promises, and with support from the same manufacturer as your processor you'd hope that it would be able to help with battery life a notable amount. So can Snapdragon BatteryGuru solve...
If you thought Qualcomm's 40 percent faster charging time in Quick Charge 1.0 was impressive, wait till you see Quick Charge 2.0. The processor manufacturer today took the wraps off the second-generation of Quick Charge, which will power up smartphones and tablets up to 75 percent faster than devices that don't have Quick Charge 2.0. Quick Charge 2.0 is a combined effort of on-device...
Exisiting technology helps supported devices charge up to 40 percent faster Qualcomm today in a blog post detailed a feature we haven't talked much about -- Quick Charge 1.0. It's part of a Snapdragon-powered phone's power management and, on paper, allows it to "charge up to 40 percent faster than older phones." It's all done with existing USB hardware on supported phones -- nothing new...
As expected, mobile hardware and component companies are pouring out the new gear announcements at CES. And not to be missed is the new chips in the pipe from Qualcomm. Dubbed the Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800, on paper it looks like they will knock our socks off. First out of the gate will be the 600 series, expected in commercial devices in the middle of this year. Take the S4 Pro...
Call it the S4, Snapdragon, or Krait -- it makes no difference. The latest and greatest from Qualcomm is a proven performer and in high demand because of it. Today they have announced the expansion of the S4 line with a pair of new quad-core Snapdragons destined for mainland China. With built-in support for various dual SIM network designs, this will give Qualcomm a leg up when...
Qualcomm's developer tablet certainly packs a punch in the specs department. But, before we go any further, we need to point out clearly and concisely -- this isn't a commercial product, it isn't meant for consumers. That doesn't mean it doesn't interest us though. Far from it. The APQ8064-based Snapdragon S4 Pro Mobile Development Platform / Tablet as it's full title reads -- we'll...
Qualcomm this morning announced the Snapdragon SDK at its Uplinq conference, "giving developers and device makers the ability to differentiate their applications on devices by exposing a new set of value-added features." Kinda makes you wonder what they were doing with them before, but SDKs, in are opinion, are good things any day of the week. So what kind of things can hardware...
Huawei today announced that the Honour, its 4-inch, Gingerbread-powered smartphone, is now available in the UK through independent retailers. Don't let the British spelling fool you-- the Honour is the same device we reviewed back in January, complete with 1.4 Ghz Snapdragon processor, and 8 MP camera. Huawei says that the Honour will bring honorable (sorry, couldn't resist) battery...
The folks at BriefMobile got hold of some info about an upcoming LG LS970 for Sprint, and it has some impressive specs -- namely the quad-core Krait S4 and 2GB of RAM. All the info they have certainly looks legit, and it's very likely we'll see this one sometime in Q4. But while everyone is in awe of those impressive innards (including most of us here at AC) we have to remember that...
With all the talk of quad-core vs dual-core, and seeing the performance of both in the same phone, we want to know. Do you want a dual-core or quad-core chip in your next device? Last year around this time we were starting to see dual-core phones emerge from manufacturers. They all promised the best performance in a mobile device you've ever seen. And they were right. The Tegra 2,...
My dual-core S4 is as good as your quad-core. No really, it is. Qualcomm recently (OK, maybe not that recently) announced the S4 Snapdragon with Krait CPU. More recently Samsung announced the Exynos 4 Quad (confirmed to power the "next Galaxy"), and we've already seen what the Tegra 3 from NVIDIA can do. Why, then, is the S4 as good as these quad-cores? Put simply, you get all the...
Update: The folks at VectorUnit got in touch with us and filled in some details about this one. While what you're seeing is the same app that is used for the Tegra 3 version, it's not really the same game. Rather than have two distinct apps, they've rolled up the Tegra 3 enhanced version and the "normal" version into one application file. That's why it plays so well, and that's why it...