Hasta La Gadget!

Welcome to Samsung Day, 2013. While we wait on some big (and little) product launches this afternoon, here’s a quick bite to keep us going: an interesting processor spec mentioned in the user manual for the SHV-E330S, which we think will be the new LTE-Advanced variant of the Galaxy S 4 intended for South Korea. How the folks at RBmen spotted it we have no idea, but one of the pages (shown after the break) confirms the presence of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974), which not only supports the new double-speed LTE standard but is also something of a beast when it comes to general performance. This isn’t especially relevant to a Western audience, perhaps, except that it marginally increases the probability that we’ll see this same powerhouse inside the rumored Galaxy Note III, since Samsung evidently feels comfortable with Qualcomm’s flagship silicon — and it can’t have failed to notice that LG’s engineers are fond of it too.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Via: RBmen, AndroidBeat, SAMmobile

Source: Samsung (PDF)

Today we had a chance to play with Qualcomm’s latest MDP devices (tablet and phone) which pack the company’s mighty Snapdragon 800 SoC (MSM8974). The tablet is slightly larger than than last year’s and features an 11.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel display, 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 32GB of built-in flash storage (with microSD expansion), USB 3.0 support and a 12 megapixel AF rear camera with flash (2MP fixed-focus in front). All of this is crammed into a slim (0.46 inches / 11.7mm) chassis that’s powered by a 3,400mAh Li-ion battery and incorporates a bevvy of radios (LTE band 17, WiFi ac, Bluetooth 4 LE, GPS, NFC) and sensors (including pressure and humidity).

The phone shares most of the tablet’s specs but swaps the screen for a 4.3-inch panel (1,280 x 720 pixels) and the battery for a smaller (1,500mAh) pack. We put these Snapdragon 800-equipped MDPs through their paces by running our usual suite of benchmarks (plus a few more). The results? Prepare for ludicrous speed! More after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

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If the HTC One is just too small for your needs, perhaps the latest rumor will perk you up: a 5.9-inch HTC device code-named the T6 is purportedly in development. Notable leakster @evleaks has dug up a few details about this handset, and — if true — this is going to be one heck of a refresh to the company’s premier lineup. Here’s what we’ve heard so far: it’s consistent with the One’s general look, sports a 1080p display, a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset (MSM8974), BoomSound, an OIS-equipped UltraPixel camera, 2GB RAM and a 3,300mAh battery. The T6 will supposedly feature a dedicated pen / stylus as well as a biometric fingerprint scanner around the back. Curiously, it’s also reported that the T6 will have a microSD slot — an addition that would be inconsistent with HTC’s current design strategy — and will run on Android Key Lime Pie. The latter rumor seems unlikely, given the high chance that 4.3 will be a Jelly Bean release, but we suppose anything can happen between now and late summer / early fall (the T6’s supposed launch timeframe). That said, all of the above rumors are making us very excited — and hopeful — for what HTC is cooking up, provided it still fits comfortably in our hands.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, HTC

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Source: TheUnlockr

While Snapdragon 600 is already showing up on various flagship devices like the HTC One, PadFone Infinity, Galaxy S 4, Optimus G Pro and Xiaomi 2S, we’re still looking forward to the big daddy of Qualcomm’s lineup this year: the Snapdragon 800. At a media event in Beijing earlier today, Senior Product Manager Yufei Wang confirmed that his company’s next flagship SoC will enter mass production in late May, but he refused to comment on which upcoming devices will feature it. And due to the current state of the silicon (even though vendors like ZTE are already sampling it), we weren’t allowed to run any benchmark tests on the Snapdragon 800 development devices on display just yet, though we’ve been told to stay tuned in June.

What makes the 800 shine brighter than the 600 is its more powerful Krait 400 architecture, which can maintain a clock speed of up to 2.3GHz; but like before, the four cores are also clocked asynchronously for better power management. On top of that, the 800 comes with the new Adreno 330 graphics processor with 30fps 4K playback capability, while still featuring the improved Adreno 320’s FlexRender technology that can dynamically switch between direct rendering and binning rendering for optimized performance and efficiency. We’ll save the nitty-gritty for the proper launch of this 28nm chip later this year.

Filed under: Misc

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Qualcomm didn’t show all its cards for this year when it unveiled the Snapdragon 600 and 800 at CES. The company is introducing a second-generation power charging technology, Quick Charge 2.0, that promises to cut mobile device charging times by as much as 75 percent versus regular power systems. Qualcomm has seen a tablet’s 7-hour top-up time reduced to under 3 hours. While 2.0 requires an optimized charger and is baked into the Snapdragon 800, it’s not exclusive to Qualcomm-based hardware — or small devices, for that matter. The updated Quick Charge is available as a stand-alone circuit, and could drive even laptops demanding up to 60W of energy. We don’t yet know the customer list, although Snapdragon 800 partners are included as a matter of course.

The telecom giant is saving one trick for itself, however. Snapdragon Voice Activation lets Snapdragon 800-based devices wake up through a specific voice command, whether or not those devices are online: think of it as a more advanced, less search-dependent parallel to Samsung’s wake-up trigger in S Voice. Both devices and software support must fall into place to make Voice Activation work, but truly hands-free mobile control could have a solid footing in the market before the year is over.

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile

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Source: Qualcomm