Qualcomm announces 64-Bit Snapdragon 410 chipset with World Mode 4G LTE

Qualcomm-Snapdragon-410 lte worldA bit techie, but stick with me.

We’re watching a smartphone revolution happen. It’s a little quiet now, but it’ll heat up very quickly. The exciting growth sector next year wont be in premier and high end phones. It’ll be in emerging and developing markets. We’ve seen hints of this with the popularity of the Nokia Lumia 520 and Moto G. Now Qualcomm is pushing forward with a new chipset designed to improve the mobile data experience for low-cost smartphones.

The Snapdragon 410 chipset is a 64-bit quadcore with integrated world mode LTE. We’re struggling to crawl out of the “chicken or egg” problem of delivering faster bandwidth to emerging markets. If they don’t have devices to support LTE, why build out the network? If there’s no network, why include expensive radios? The 410 aims to solve part of this problem by including LTE in a package which is designed for phones around the $150 off-contract price point. That’s Lumia 520 and Moto G territory.

The 64-bit addition could be interesting as well. Apple struck first, and we can take that as a clue or a cue that they might start merging the iOS and OSX ecosystems. We know Microsoft is working towards that with a planned release of “Threshold” in 2015, bringing Windows Phone and Windows 8 together. Qualcomm is now offering up hardware which might better facilitate that kind of software integration. Imagine Windows Phones, which can offer a robust computing environment like Windows RT for $200 or less powered by LTE data. Remarkable.

Read the full PR after the jump.

Continue reading “Qualcomm announces 64-Bit Snapdragon 410 chipset with World Mode 4G LTE”

The most powerful Android phone? Benchmarking the LG G2.

LG G2 benchmarks optimus g pro comparisonIn Android land we care about specs. We care about them a lot. Before even handling a device, many will scrutinize things like processor, storage, and RAM to make purchasing decisions.

Here stateside, the LG G2 was one of the first phones to utilize Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 series processor. This is an architecture improvement over the very solid Snapdragon 600 used in phones like the HTC One and Galaxy S4. How much of an improvement? That’s what we’re going to take a look at in this video.

LG’s Optimus G Pro uses the 600 series chipset, so this obviously isn’t a competition. This is a comparison to see how improved the new processor is, so I don’t want cranky fanbois telling me how this isn’t a “fair test” or other such nonsense. We KNOW the G2 is going to win most of these. We wanna see by how much!

There are links after the jump if you want to skip to specific bench marks, or you can watch the whole battery of tests below. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading “The most powerful Android phone? Benchmarking the LG G2.”

I Ask YOU: Why Do We Need 64-Bit Processors in Phones?

apple a7 and m7 processors 64 bit somegadgetguyNo seriously folks. I don’t get it, and I need your help to understand.

Why do we need 64-bit processors in our phones?

First Apple announces 64-bit will be included in the iPhone 5s, and now Samsung says they’ll be getting in on the trick in 2014. As best as I could understand, one of the primary reasons we moved to 64-bit on desktops and laptops was to allow us to use more than 4GB of RAM.

Are there other advantages I’m not aware of? Might this be a preemptive move for some future technology? I’m nonplussed…

Drop me a comment. School me folks!