Hasta La Gadget!

When it comes to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, Qualcomm is a name that pops up often as the company that supplies manufacturers SoCs. Granted there are other companies like Texas Instruments, NVIDIA and Samsung, but Qualcomm’s name is probably more commonplace to the extent that smartphone chip designers in China have reportedly (via Digitimes) merged together in order to be a more competitive force against Qualcomm.

Qualcomm and MediaTek have offered quad-core chip solutions and Qualcomm’s chip solutions can support CDMA 2000, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA and LTE, while MediaTek’s can support EDGE, WCDMA and TD-SCDMA, the sources indicated. In comparison, most of China-based designers’ chip solutions support EDGE and TD-SCDMA but not WCDMA and CDMA 2000, the sources pointed out.

It is unclear at this point what sort of implications this move might have, although we’re sure that the added competition might spur Qualcomm on to producing a better product – that or we could be looking at a new force to be reckoned with as far as SoCs are concerned that could lead to more powerful and/or efficient devices.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Qualcomm announces entry level quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play processors, LG, Qualcomm announce September 19th event for a new smartphone,

The first step in any awesome developer adventure is to prove to developers that working with a group like NETGEAR is worth the effort – now that they’ve got Qualcomm Atheros on their team, that goal just got a lot easier. What the folks at the newly announced NETGEAR Developer Program are showing off today to get people pumped up for the program itself is Qualcomm Atheros’ Skifta. This Skifta app is not brand new, but it’s definitely making the whole idea of developing for NETGEAR hardware seem well worth the effort.

What you’ve got with Skifta is an app that allows you to control the media that exists on your home network. If you’ve got a NETGEAR drive sitting in your network, you can access all of the songs, movies, photos, and more in an instant. We’ve got it running on a Motorola DROID RAZR M here today – which just so happens to run a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor under the hood – and the process in gaining access to our media was more than just simple – it was just a couple of taps!

What you’re seeing here is our access to a slightly less traditional server, just to show you how versatile this system is. When we fire Skifta up on the DROID RAZR M, we see our Alienware gaming PC. This PC runs Windows 7 Home Premium and is connected to our wi-fi network with a collection of shared movies, photos, and songs.

We can choose to play a song straight from the Android device here – as shown, or we can connect to most DLNA/UPnP players around the house. You can connect to your PlayStation 3 if you want, or to your DLNA HDTV too – whatever you’ve got prepared. This process essentially turns your Android device into a one-stop-shop for controlling the media anywhere inside your home network. Open it up, scan, select, and play!

This is just one example of the wave of excellence that’ll surely be popping up in the NETGEAR Developer Program soon – stay tuned and get jacked for more!

NETGEAR Developer Program teams with Qualcomm for smart apps galore is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We recently caught first sight of the ZTE Engage at a press event in New York, but while Cricket was more than happy to let us play with its latest smartphone, the carrier stopped short of providing us with its pricing or arrival date. All of that changed this afternoon, as we now know that the ZTE Engage will become available on October 2nd with a no-contract price of $250. As a quick refresher, the handset will feature a near-stock Android 4.0 environment and a Snapdragon S2 SoC with a CPU that’s clocked at 1.4GHz. Other relevant specs include a 4-inch WVGA (800 x 480) TFT-LCD display, an 8-megapixel rear camera with a VGA front-facing counterpart and a 1,900mAh battery. For complete details, you’ll find the full PR right after the break.

Continue reading ZTE Engage cleared to land at Cricket on October 2nd for $250

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

ZTE Engage cleared to land at Cricket on October 2nd for $250 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Several new high-volume smartphone ready Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad-core processors have been revealed for the mass market today along with Reference Design Counterparts for device makers of all kinds. This release lets the world know that Qualcomm is ready to continue their fast-forward assault on the smartphone world with upgraded versions of the already successful Snapdragon S4 Play MSM8225 and MSM8625 processors. With the quad-core Snapdragon S4 MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q, you’ll be working with next-generation power by the first quarter of 2013.

These MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q processor have four CPU cores each and will support LPDDR2 memory as well as dual-SIM support. This new architecture will increase bus bandwidth for 720p video encode and decode as well as 720p device displays. The MSM8225Q has an integrated UMTS modem while the MSM8625Q works with Qualcomm’s own integrated multimode UMTS/CDMA modem. Both processors will be bringing on support for FM radio, Bluetooth 4.0, wi-fi connectivity, and Qualcomm Atheros AR6005 and WCN2243 chips.

There’s another processor in the works as well, that being the Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8930 made for supporting all China operators with UMTS, CDMA and TD-SCDMA. This processor was announced back in February 2011 and will be popping up by the end of 2012 and shipping on commercial devices by the first quarter of 2013. This processor is dual-core and supports 4G LTE with an integrated LTE modem. That’s LTE-TDD and TD-SCDMA support in China – soon!

Each of the three processors mentioned here will have their own Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) versions with comprehensive handset development platforms as well as Qualcomm support for their ecosystem of fabulous technologies. Get pumped up about the next generation of Qualcomm processors as Snapdragon continues to find its way into some of the biggest names in smartphone technology – great things are ahead!

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad-core processors for smartphones expand lineup is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Don’t think Qualcomm is limiting its quad-core processors to superstar phones. The Snapdragon S4 Play line is growing to include the MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q, parallels to the existing two Play chips that bring four cores to entry-level devices. Besides the speed improvements that you’d expect from all that extra parallelism, the Q variants support the extra bandwidth of low-power DDR2 (LPDDR2) memory and can handle both 720p displays and movie-making. Neither is quite an all-encompassing solution, although the two will cover the bases for much of the starter demographic: while local wireless such as Bluetooth, FM radio and WiFi have to remain separate from the main processor, the two newcomers manage to pack either single-mode UMTS 3G (in the 8225Q) or dual-mode CDMA and UMTS (in the 8625Q) for their cellular fix. Along with the already promised, China-focused S4 Plus MSM8930, test samples of the faster S4 Play editions will be ready before the end of the year, with shipping phones on the way in early 2013 — just in time to go head-to-head with a similar push by MediaTek to make quad-core the norm for a much larger slice of the population.

Continue reading Qualcomm reveals quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play processors, ramps up entry smartphone speeds

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Qualcomm reveals quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play processors, ramps up entry smartphone speeds originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 23:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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