Hasta La Gadget!

We already confirmed that RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook was deadly fast in use, but up until now, we’ve still been left to wonder what kind of silicon was powering it. According to a RIM representative that spoke to us just now on the CES show floor, a dual-core OMAP chip from Texas Instruments is doing the honors — more specifically, it’s the blisteringly fast 1GHz OMAP 4430. And now, you know.

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook using a 1GHz OMAP 4430 processor originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 18:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You may not have heard of Ambarella factoring into the smartphone processor race alongside Qualcomm, TI, and Samsung, and there’s a good reason for that: they don’t do smartphone processors. Rather, these guys are in the business of making video and photographic processing chips, and their latest — the iOne — is a doozy. Starting with a dual-core Cortex-A9 at 1GHz, the iOne adds in an extra ARM11 core at 533MHz dedicated to handling camera functions and ensuring ready times of under one second. It’s capable of real-time encode and decode of H.264 1080p video content at 30fps and includes a GPU that can run OpenGL ES 2.0 for what we can only assume would be the wildest camera UI you’ve ever seen. What kind of beastly point-and-shoot is this, anyway? Well, Ambarella envisions cameras running Android before too long, and when you think about it, the hardware difference between a smartphone and a digital camera is getting smaller by the day — so it would make sense that this iOne sounds so much like something we’d like to have powering our handsets. We can dream, can’t we? Follow the break for the press release.

Continue reading Ambarella’s Cortex A9-based iOne is the smartphone processor of your dreams… but it’s for your camera

Ambarella’s Cortex A9-based iOne is the smartphone processor of your dreams… but it’s for your camera originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We don’t have any hard details yet, but Computerworld reports that Nokia’s planning a busy 2011, with four to five updates to the Symbian UI on tap, as well as dual-core phones. The information comes courtesy of Nokia senior manager Gunther Kottzieper, who gave a presentation at the 2010 Internation Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing earlier today — a slide labeled “Nokia Symbian 2011 focus areas” indicated that a Q1 Symbian update will include over 50 features, including a more intuitive browser, while second- and third-quarter updates will add “a new look and feel for the user interface, a more flexible home screen, an updatable HTML5 browser and an easier software update experience.” A hardware-related slide tipped upcoming 1GHz phones with more graphics memory in the second or third quarter, as well as dual-core phones and something called a “true zoom camera” in late 2011 or early 2012. (We’re guessing that means an optical zoom, which would be just wild on a mobile phone.) Ignore this morning’s E7 delay and all of that sounds like evidence of renewed focus at Nokia under new management — and it also sounds like Nokia taking over Symbian development might have lit some serious fires. We’re dying to look at these slides ourselves — we’ll keep digging and let you know.

Nokia to revamp Symbian UI, ship dual-core phones in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phones and tablets based on TI’s first production OMAP4 processor — the OMAP4430 — won’t even be on the market until early next year, but TI’s already planning ahead with the announcement of an upgraded chip that promises a 50 percent boost in overall performance. The new OMAP4440 can send its two Cortex-A9-based cores as high as 1.5GHz, while the 4430 tops out at 1GHz; TI says that means we should expect a 1.25x improvement in graphics performance, a 30 percent decline in webpage load time, and 1080p playback performance that doubles the slowpoke (comparably speaking, anyway) 4430. The company expects to sample these little speed demons to manufacturers in the first quarter of next year with volume shipment coming in the second half, itching to do battle with Samsung’s Orion; in the meantime, we suppose your 4430 will have to do. Follow the break for the press release.

Continue reading TI’s OMAP4440 processor brings two blazing Cortex-A9 cores to the table

TI’s OMAP4440 processor brings two blazing Cortex-A9 cores to the table originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS has just introduced the Eee PC 1015PEM, its first 10-inch netbook with a 1.5GHz dual-core Intel Atom N550 CPU. Specwise, it boasts an up to 350GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 3.0, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi. It comes pre-loaded with Windows 7 Starter Edition, with prices starting at $349. The ASUS Eee PC 1015PEM is available today, in red, blue, pink, black, or white.

ASUS busts out dual-core Eee PC 1015PEM netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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