Nvidia Tegra 4 Benchmarks on Tablet Reference Design

Mobile World Congress 2013 has just started. Nvidia is showcasing both a smartphone reference platform based on Nvidia Tegra 4i (Phoenix reference phone) and an unnamed tablet reference design with Tegra 4 during the event, and several Android benchmarks have been run on the platform including Antutu and Quadrant. The results in the quad-core Cortex A15 Tegra 4 are really impressive with over 36,000 in AnTuTu and 16,000 in Quadrant, which are the best scores ever reported (by far) on those two benchmarks, as the top score in Antutu achieved with an overclocked Galaxy Note 2 is just over 27,000, a phone like the HTC One X scores around 5,600… Android Police also ran two other benchmarks that can help to access web browsing performance: Vellamo (HTML5) and SunSpider. The Tegra 4 completes SunSpider in 494ms (vs 1124ms with HTC One and 208ms in my desktop PC), and scores 3300 […]

Open ARM GPU Drivers FOSDEM 2013 Video and Call to ARM Management

As I previously wrote, FOSDEM organizers are slowly uploading FOSDEM 2013 videos. One of the most interesting talk “Open ARM GPU Drivers” is now available. I’ve also uploaded it to YouTube (embedded below) to give it more exposure. Luc Verhaegen has also written a recent blog post entitled “Hey ARM!” where he announces the release of the modified source for Quake 3 Arena demo, and asks ARM to join them in making an open source driver. Open ARM GPU Drivers @ FOSDEM2013 This session covers the following key points: Problem – Binary drivers are mainly designed to run in Android, and it’s very difficult to have proper GPU drivers for Linux, and companies are not interested to release open source drivers or even just documentation, as they are not convinced it will benefit them in any way. Legal – This is actually the main issue, as open sourcing existing driver […]

Qualcomm CES 2013 Keynote Was (Mostly) a Waste of Time

Don’t get me wrong Qualcomm makes awesome processors, but as a blogger I already had a fairly negative opinion of Qualcomm when it comes to press releases about their new processors since they usually do not release any details. Yet I was naively thinking I could learn about Qualcomm upcoming products at their keynote, and I was (mostly) completely wrong. If you haven’t watched it yet and want to enjoy a 1h30 show, go watch the on-demand video, where you’ll see current Windows RT products based on Qualcomm, upcoming movies (Pacific Rim and Star Trek), Big Bird, Nascar and Maroon 5. However, if you want to learn about Qualcomm and be fed with geeky stuffs, don’t waste your time. I’ve still been able to extra a little bit of useful information, and got some more info from other sites, and amazingly Qualcomm’s own press releases. Unless you’re high after smoking […]

Qualcomm Announces SnapDragon S4 MSM8226 & MSM8626 Quad Core Cortex A7 Processors

After news of an AllWinner A31 Tablet earlier today, here’s an other quad core Cortex A7 processor announcement, as Qualcomm has recently added of 2 new chipsets to its Snapdragon S4 family of mobile processors: the MSM8226 and MSM8626 featuring 4 ARM Cortex A7 core and Adreno 305 GPU. The processors support 1080p video playback and up to 13MP cameras. Both processors are built using 28nm technology node, and will be ready for customer sampling by Q2 2013 for UMTS, CDMA and TD-SCDMA. These 2 chipsets will incorporate WTR2605, a new multi-mode radio transceiver, specifically designed and optimized to address China requirements such as support for TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1xAdv and HSPA+. The WTR2605 transceiver comes with an integrated, high-performance GPS core with GLONASS and Beidou support, and is said to offer 40 percent power savings and 60 percent smaller footprint compared to previous generations. The company will also provide Qualcomm […]

Android Jelly Bean 4.2 SDK, Source Code and Binary Images Are Now Available

As the Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet became available for purchase yesterday, Google released Android 4.2 SDK for developers and pushed Android 4.2 to AOSP. The Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) SDK platform (API level 17) brings the following key improvements: Performance – Renderscript computation can be run directly in the GPU on the Nexus 10. This is a first since Exynos 5250 is the first ARM processor capable of supporting GPGPU (via Mali-T604 GPU). See the chart of the right showing results between CPU and CPU+GPU computation of some multimedia benchmarks. Lock screen widgets – Users can now place interactive lock screen widgets directly on their device lock screens. This only requires a small update to adapt existing widgets to run on the lock screen.  Daydream – An interactive screensaver mode that can be used when the device is charging or docked to a desk dock. Better external […]

Google Unveils LG Nexus 4 Smartphone and Samsung Nexus 10 Tablet Running Android 4.2

Event though it had to cancel the media event due to bad weather, Google made several important announcements yesterday with the LG Nexus 4 Smartphone based on Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 and Samsung Nexus 10 tablet powered by the latest ARM Cortex A15 Exynos 5250 processor. The company also announced Android 4.2 (still called Jelly Bean) which will run on both devices. I’ll provide more details on the new features of the latest version of Android in a separate post. Let’s see what kind of hardware the Nexus 4 has to offer: CPU – Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro @ 1.5 GHz (Quad Core) System Memory  – 2 GB RAM Storage – 8 or 16 GB internal storage Display – 4.7″ IPS display (1280×768) Camera – 8MP rear and 1.3 MP front cameras. Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, NFC (Android Beam) and Bluetooth Mobile Network – Unlocked GSM/UMTS/HSPA+, GSM/EDGE/GPRS (850, 900, 1800, […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro Mobile Development Platform Is Now Available for $1299

A few weeks ago, Qualcomm showcased their new Snapdragon S4 APQ8064 processor with their tablet reference design at Uplink 2012. The platform (Snapdragon S4 Pro Mobile Development Platform for tablets (MDP/T)) is now available to developers for 1299 USD. This development tablet based on APQ8064 processor with Adreno 320 GPU comes with 2GB LPDDR2 RAM and 32 GB flash, features a 10.1” WXGA Multi-touch display, and runs Android 4.0. It will allows developers and manufacturer to develop, test, optimize and showcase applications and games for a wide range of pre-commercial Android devices. Here are the technical specifications of the Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 MDP/T: Processor APQ8064 @ 1.5 Ghz (Quad core) PM8921+ PM8821 (PMIC) WCN3360 (WLAN/BT/FM) WCD9310 (Audio) WGR7640 (GPS) Graphics Adreno 320 graphics processing unit (GPU) Display 10.1” 1366×768 display True multi-touch capacitive touch screen Video 1080 High-definition video recording and playback up to 30 frames per second Stereoscopic […]

Qualcomm Showcases Quad Core Snapdragon APQ8064 Application Processor

Way back in February 2011, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon APQ8064, a quad core application processor clocked at up to 2.5 GHz, that was (and still is) supposed to be available in products end of 2012, beginning of 2013. They now have samples, and showcased the processor in an Android tablet reference design at UpLink 2012. The APQ8064 is part of SnapDragon S4 Pro family and features 4 Krait cores running at up to 1.5 GHz when all four cores are running, or up to 1.7 GHz when only one core is active, according to Anandtech. So it appears they did not follow up on the 2.5 GHz promise. APQ8064 is the first SoC featuring Adreno 320 GPU, and will be followed by MSM8960 later on. The demo below shows the 3D performance of the Qualcomm processor and GPU, and Raj Talluri, Senior Vice President, Product Management at Qualcomm, claims the […]