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KDDI, Japan’s second largest carrier is launching Kyocera’s first major Android WiMax smartphone for the Japanese market, the DIGNO ISW11K.
Here are the specs:
Source: au.kddi.com
via: landofdroid.com
Here is my speculation for some of the upcoming high-end Samsung Android phones based on the recently rumored new Samsung Exynos 4412 Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 at 1.5Ghz, and based on looking at the Texas Instruments OMAP4 roadmap and thinking the faster OMAP4 processors are fully backwards compatible requiring little design and software changes for Samsung to upgrade:
- Galaxy Nexus 1.2Ghz OMAP4460 dual-core SGX540 308Mhz 45nm launching before Christmas
- Galaxy Nexus 1.5Ghz OMAP4460 dual-core SGX540 384Mhz 45nm around January/February
- Galaxy Nexus 1.8Ghz OMAP4470 dual-core SGX544 384Mhz 45nm around March/April
- Andromeda (Galaxy S3) 1.5Ghz Exynos 4412 quad-core Mali-T604 32nm around May/June/July
- Hydra (Galaxy Nexus 2) 2Ghz OMAP5 ARM Cortex-A15 SGX6 28nm around September
- Quasar (Galaxy S4) 2Ghz Exynos 5 ARM Cortex-A15 Mali-T658 28nm around November
I’m using the names Andromeda, Hydra and Quasar because I think Samsung may at some point stop using the Galaxy name in every new phone.
Samsung will likely also continue to release high-end phones using the best that Qualcomm and Nvidia can come with. Thus expect some Qualcomm Krait and Nvidia Tegra3 in some new Samsung phones also. The reason being Samsung is so big they need to use all the major processors in their phone designs, thus spreading their reach further over the market.
What do you think Samsung is going to release?
Nvidia just released this video demo showing Ice Cream Sandwich running on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime (click to pre-order for $499 on Amazon). It will be awesome to see if a full Chrome browser can be run on top of Ice Cream Sandwich for when a device like this is used in ARM Powered Laptop mode and using the HDMI output and USB/bluetooth keyboard/mouse in ARM Powered Desktop mode.
This is the new Qualcomm S4 MSM8960 Krait development platform with the Adreno 225 GPU, on a pretty high-end tablet development kit, with a 1366×768 capacitive screen, 13 megapixel camera, 3D camera, 2megapixel front-facing camera for 1080p video conferencing and a bunch of other new sensors, fingerprint reader, an MHL connector, full sized SD card slot and more.
Source: engadget.com
Qualcomm also announced a new bunch of their Krait S4 ARM Processors due to arrive in Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops and more starting early next year:
The Krait CPU is the next generation of Qualcomm’s micro architecture and is purpose-built from the ground up for significant mobile performance and power management advantages leading to enhanced user experience and better battery life. The Krait CPU is an essential part of the Snapdragon S4 class of processors. Today, Qualcomm announced several new S4 chipsets, including the MSM8660A, MSM8260A, MSM8630, MSM8230, MSM8627, MSM8227, APQ8060A and APQ8030. These are additional chipsets to the previously announced MSM8960, MSM8930 and APQ8064. Snapdragon S4 MSM processors include Qualcomm’s leading-edge wireless modem technologies, including EV-DO, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, LTE FDD, LTE TDD and Wi-Fi® standards.
Using a small modification to ICS to use software GL from Vishal Bhoj, Linaro engineer Mathieu Poirier was able to get ICS running on the Snowball board. This may be the first demonstration of Ice Cream Sandwich running on another SoC than the OMAP4?
Norwegian FXI Technologies is showing their new Exynos 4210 ARM Cortex-A9 based computer in a 21 gram USB stick form factor. It has HDMI output, it powers from USB, has a built-in MicroSD card slot, WiFi and Bluetooth. It’s to be released next year.
Video by: booredatwork.com
Liliputing.com just posted this video showing how nicely the full Google Marketplace can be made to work on the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire. For the next step, I expect Amazon will update it to Ice Cream Sandwich, and when they do, I expect Amazon to pre-install the full Google Marketplace and all the Google Apps, just because that’s what is better for the consumer. And I think Amazon will figure out that it’ll actually increase their own content sales in terms of revenue per tablet to simply fully unlock the Kindle Fire.
It still doesn’t have HDMI output, kick-stand, MicroSD card slot, USB host, webcam, legal Mpeg2/AC3/DTS codecs up to 1080p legally either.
Source: liliputing.com
Texas Instruments released this video showing that Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 now already boots fine on the OMAP4430 based $179 Pandaboard which you can buy at http://pandaboard.org. I expect that we might see Desktop-optimized user interfaces and a full Chrome web browser soon, maybe with Android 4.1 or 4.2. As I also think it’s important for every ICS smartphone to turn into a “desktop mode” when using the HDMI output and when a keyboard and mouse are detected.
ZiiLABS released this video demonstrating 1080p high profile level 4.1 H.264 with CABAC, deblocking and 8×8 transforms. Played on the ZMS-20 based JAGUAR platform.
Wow, Google just released the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich in this Google Groups post.
Expect all Gingerbread-capable devices be able to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich rapidly. The question is only how soon each ARM SoC can have it fully hardware accelerated? Who is doing that work of doing all the hardware optimizations? Who is eventually disabling or tuning down certain hardware accelerated advanced user interface features in the software if that hardware is not powerful enough or of lower performance?
As of course one can expect all the latest high-end Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 processors to support this soon, including all devices on the TI OMAP4, Samsung Exynos 4210, Qualcomm MSM8260/8660, Nvidia Tegra2 and Tegra3, St-Ericsson U8500/U9500 and more. Imagine how awesome it is going to be to see firmware updates upgrading all Tablets and Smartphones using following cheap SoCs to Ice Cream Sandwich:
- TI OMAP3630/3530/3430 ARM Cortex-A8
- Samsung Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8
- Freescale i.MX51/53 ARM Cortex-A8
- Marvell PXA618 Single Core
- Qualcomm 8255/8255T Single Core up to 1.5Ghz
- Rockchip RK2918 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz
- Telechips 8803 ARM Cortex-A8 1.2Ghz
- AmLogic 8726 ARM Cortex-A9 Single Core 800Mhz
- NEC/Renesas EV2 ARM Cortex-A9 Dual Core 533Mhz
- Qualcomm MSM7227 ARM11
- Mediatek MTK6573 ARM11
- VIA 8710 ARM11
and more! Does anyone know how to get a confirmation from each of these ARM SoC providers to get an idea about how soon and if they expect to get full Ice Cream Sandwich support? Who is going to make that work, do each SoC provider, each device maker have to do all the work or is Google contributing a lot of those software optimizations already as part of the open source Android 4.0.1 code release?
How soon can we expect to find some awesome sub-$100 and sub-$200 fully capacitive, fully smooth Android phones, tablets running on the amazing Android 4.0.1? Can we expect them all now to be fully officially allowed to pre-load the full Google Marketplace, having the full Google-supported Tablet features, official tablet services pre-loaded, no questions asked? I expect Google’s new Ice Cream Sandwich Compatibility Definition Document to allow for every one of those SoCs full compatibility, even the cheapest, and not requiring any specific sensors, screen sizes, buttons, 3G features or other to get official Google Marketplace on those.
I expect that we may see Ice Cream Sandwich on all these SoC, even the ARM11 based ones, starting as soon as before the end of the year, or maybe in January or February of next year. I expect all cheap tablets and phones to run the latest Ice Cream Sandwich, all come with the official Google Marketplace legally pre-loaded, regardless of sensors present. I also expect either Android 4.0.1 or perhaps later coming Android 4.1, Android 4.2 to also provide full support for Set-top-boxes, Laptops, E-readers and more. That means, I expect this to provide a full Google TV experience on HDMI out. I expect this to provide a full Chrome browser when outputting a HD output and keyboard/mouse is detected. I expect this to provide the best ever user interface and applications platform for E-Ink and Pixel Qi based e-readers, powering a better reading experience.
Source: techmeme.com