Dual-Core CPU Opens Door To 1080p On Smartphones 314
An anonymous reader writes "Following Qualcomm, Samsung is also close to launching a new smartphone processor with two cores. Based on ARM architecture, the new Orion processor promises five times the graphics performance of current chips and to enable 1080p video recording and playback. Next year, it seems, dual-core smart phones will be all the rage. Apple, which is generally believed to have the most capable processor in the market today, may be under pressure to roll out a dual-core iPhone next year as well."
Dual core iPhone (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Killer feature. (Score:5, Funny)
Fine. So you're a member of the 1% of all cellphone users that doesn't regularly connect their phone to their TV to watch HD movies.
Maybe you should try joining the rest of us in the 21st century, with chargers at home, at the office and in our cars!
Yes but the tech press loves Apple (Score:3, Funny)
If you haven't noticed, everything Apple does is always "brilliant" and "innovative" according to the tech press. Doesn't matter if they are releasing something that is the same as everything else. For example the Apple TV gets praise lavished on it as an amazing on-demand streaming device, even though nearly every Blu-ray player with an ethernet port also does streaming and, of course, plays DVDs and Blu-rays on top of that.
For that matter, it might even be Apple PR copied verbatim. It is amazing how many press agencies will just reprint PR copy that the like. A PR firm will send out the "OMG t3h new stuffs!" memo, as PR firms do, and sites will pick it up and regurgitate a good bit of it verbatim.
Re:Apple? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Enlighten me please (Score:5, Funny)
I have a hard time understanding how 1080p is such a great feature on screens 4" or smaller in diameter.
You raise an interesting question, that which will likely be the next big paradigm in smart phones. Circular screens.
Re:Killer feature. (Score:4, Funny)
Battery life is fine if you keep the screen off. I get a standby power draw of roughly 5mA on average on my Desire. That works out to about 280h of standby time, and that's with a bunch of always-connected applications (Google Sync always active, an IM client, SIP client) in the background, and WiFi and Bluetooth on. Turn all that stuff off and I get values more around 3mA... 466h.
Obviously a screen that draws almost 100x as much (seriously, at full power the AMOLED screen draws close to 300mA!) is going to kill off the battery very quickly.
In comparison, the SoC uses very little power (full CPU load on the Desire's Snapdragon is 40mA higher than idle - tested with SetCPU's stress test) and scales very well with load. If you really want to increase use time, build more efficient screens... fuck the processor.
So what you're saying is that if you never actually look at your phone, or use it as a phone, you can run idle applications in the background. Colour me impressed.
Re:Apple? (Score:2, Funny)
I have this vision of a chair throwing Steve Jobs. He's on stage yelling 'Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Marketing....'
Re:That would work if... (Score:3, Funny)
But if we believe the parallel universes theory, aren't we all programming in parallel already?