Category: Qualcomm

Qualcomm’s next Snapdragon generations

Posted by – January 23, 2010
Category: Qualcomm

Qualcomm Inc.
Image via Wikipedia

In an interview at hexus.net, Luis Pineda, SVP of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies talks about the next generation of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors:

– Qualcomm 8X50A is 1.3ghz 45nm processor is being offered to manufacturers starting this month. Should arrive in products before the end of the year.

– Qualcomm 8X72 is a dual-core 1.5ghz processor will be released before the end of the year with products featuring it to come later. Could the 8X72 be Qualcomm’s first ARM Cortex A9 based processor?

We are already seeing the ARM Cortex A8 based 1ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon doing very impressive things in the HP Compaq Airlife 100, the Lenovo Skylight, LG Expo with add-on projector, Lenovo LePhone, Lenovo Ideapad U1, the Quanta Smartbook, the Google Nexus One phone and many more such really smooth and powerful devices. It will be interesting to see Qualcomm’s next generation ARM processors that use 45nm process instead of 65nm and that use the ARM Cortex A9 architechture for even more powerful products that consume even less power.

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HP Compaq Airlife 100 hit the FCC

Posted by – January 21, 2010

Wow, so HP is likely going to be pushing the awesome looking Qualcomm Snapdragon powered Android laptop on 3G networks! See my previously posted video of it:

Source: engadget.com

See more videos of this product from CES:

Netbooknews.com‘s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIm5BQhvhgk

JKKmobile.com‘s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5RdVAEXqCc

Liliputing.com‘s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o3T5w9NDvA

HP’s official CES video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXMl0XISYnY

Andy Clipsham, Product Manager on the HP Android Smartbook, unveils it at the Qualcomm keynote at CES 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSvGhXa6RdY

Lenovo Skylight at CES 2010

Posted by – January 17, 2010

An ultra slim awesome looking ARM Powered laptop shown by Lenovo at the CES 2010. It is ultra slim and light, they are currently running a version of Linux customized by Thundersoft to provide basic applications.

LG Expo with add-on projector

Posted by – January 11, 2010

LG Expo with add-on projector is using an 1ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon runs Windows Mobile 6.5.

Lenovo LePhone (Chinese market Android customizations)

Posted by – January 11, 2010

It has about the same features as the Nexus One, a 3.7″ AMOLED capacitative touch screen, a 1ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. But this one runs a customized Android user interface for the Chinese market instead of running the full Google Experience. It should be sold at below $300 unlocked in China when it is released.

Motorola Backflip at CES 2010

Posted by – January 10, 2010

A new design for an Android phone by Motorola where the screen flips on the back of the keyboard.

Motorola Cliq at CES 2010

Posted by – January 10, 2010

Little compact Android Motorola phone.

Lenovo Ideapad U1 Tablet/Laptop hybrid

Posted by – January 10, 2010

Lenovo is presenting a hybrid ARM Powered Tablet mode that docks into an Intel Core Duo bottom to become the Laptop form factor.

Quanta ARM Powered laptop design at CES 2010

Posted by – January 9, 2010

Here’s one thin really nice looking Android laptop design by Quanta, one of the largest laptop manufacturers in the world.

HP Android Qualcomm Snapdragon Laptop

Posted by – January 8, 2010

This may be one of the best implementations of Android on an ARM Powered Laptop so far, HP is showing off their masterful customized Android user interface for the ARM Qualcomm Snapdragon based laptop form factor. It has great automatic standby and resume, connected standby, and a range of customized high resolution Android applications, widgets a touch screen and even hardware Search, Home/Menu/Back buttons on the super well made design.

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I am video-blogging using an ARM Powered laptop!

Posted by – January 7, 2010

This is a worlds first, so does the Lenovo staff tell me. I can insert my SD card from my Sanyo HD1000 into the SD card reader of the Lenovo Skylight Smartbook, and right from within their Firefox based web browser, log-in to Youtube, click upload, select the file from the SD card and simply click to upload it! I actually uploaded this 1280×720 9mbit/s 25MB video clip using their built-in AT&T 3G connection, it took about a couple of minutes to upload over 3G. The same can of course be done faster over WiFi. With more tests to come up, I will try to figure out if the Youtube video-blogging using this ARM Powered laptop can be done just as fast as using an Intel powered laptop. And the ability to constantly upload videos from the bag over 3G and automatic WiFi roaming could be really interesting. The built-in USB host could also host future wireless dongles such as WiMax, White Spaces, LTE or some wireless broadband technologies to make it even faster to upload HD videos using it.

Another really cool thing is that the H264 baseline 9mbit/s 1280×720 Sanyo HD1000 video files playback nearly flawlessly on this ARM Powered laptop using its media player application.

Google Nexus One at CES 2010

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Here it is! The first ARM Powered hardware sold by Google directly at http://google.com/phone

It’s $529 unlocked for now. Please comment here if you think that I should buy one or wait for those Android phones to be available for less than $200 unlocked as I speculated that the price could have been for this device.

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Lenovo Skylight at CES 2010

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Here is Lenovo’s first ARM Powered laptop, it looks really awesome, I will film more of its Interface, software and features during the next few days. So check back! If you have some specific features you would like me to test on this ARM Powered laptop, please post in the forum comments thread for this video.

Lenovo’s official marketing video:

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Asus Chairman Jonney Shih talks about the Asus ARM based Smartbooks in the works

Posted by – January 6, 2010

Basically, he says Asus are working on ARM Powered laptops, they are just not going to show them yet. I asked him off camera afterwards if the EeePad Asus Tablet rumor was for real and if Asus was working on any Android devices, he said they were working on it but not showing anything for now.

WiFi is bad at CES, video-uploads coming later

Posted by – January 6, 2010

I am not able to get enough bandwidth or any connection at all on the WiFi hotspots at the CES press events at the Venetian hotel (is CES not really interested in having bloggers blog about their tradeshow?), the Venetian press room has no working wifi and 6 ethernet cables to share among 2000 journalists. Also, the $10 daily WiFi access at my hotel room at Imperial Palace constantly drops off so I can for now not upload my first CES HD quality videos.

So for now I send you this blurry picture:

Today, I have seen some awesome looking ARM Powered laptops powered by Marvell and Qualcomm and the Lenovo one looks really great.

I will upload my videos daily as soon as I have access to the real Press Room at the convention center, perhaps starting tomorrow, where I am sure that they will provide hundreds of megabits per second upload speeds.

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Lenovo Skylight is a Snapdragon ARM Powered Laptop to be shown at CES

Posted by – January 5, 2010
Category: Laptops, Qualcomm, CES

Consumer Electronics Show
Image via Wikipedia

I am really looking forward to see them demonstrated at CES. Anyone would like to speculate how good the Web Browser might be at this point? Consider the rumor is that the Lenovo Skylight will ship in April, which may mean that some software optimizations are still being worked on including full Javascripts, Flash, Video playback and 3D all to hopefully be optimized by hardware acceleration. What kind of optimized Linux software do you think this device might be using?

Also what do you think the actual prices might be? The rumor is that the laptop may come with 20GB on-board memory and 2GB of cloud storage.

The rumor is that it is super thin and light and still may deliver more than 10 hours of battery life when 3G surfing on its 10.1″ high resolution screen.

Photos and details on pricing are being released on blogs: see netbookchoice.com and enjoy following pictures:

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The blogosphere reports my Nexus One pricing speculation as rumor

Posted by – December 16, 2009

Several blogs have been reporting my speculation on Nexus One pricing as a rumor. Which is okay, but I am only freely thinking what to expect Google will do about the pricing. What I think Google should do. I don’t have secret infos from Google insiders, at least not yet. Although I am sure Google insiders are monitoring what the blogosphere is talking about so if they see a lot of people getting excited about disruptive pricing and VOIP features, then it could well encourage them to actually really make the big announcements and make it happen at the launch.

My speculation is based on following:

1. Manufacture and Bill of Material of a 3.7″ AMOLED touch screen smartphone has been calculated by isupply and others to cost below $150 all inclusive when mass manufactured. Although an AMOLED WVGA screen is probably a bit more expensive than a 3.5″ 480×320 LCD screen. Manufacturers and resellers make very high profit margins when they sell unlocked smartphones at $400-500, and I think, those prices are only a deterrent to unlocked phones and to push consumers into signing $2500 2-year contracts for getting those phones.

2. My speculation is that when Google will be selling its own phone (even manufactured by HTC or other Smartphone manufacturers in Asia), my speculation is that Google does not need to profit on the hardware, but plans to profit over time on mobile ads and services.

3. Google does not own spectrum, yet my basic suggestion is that Google may be able to approach telecom carriers internationally and offer to buy Petabytes of bandwidth on 3G networks, at a given rate per GB, and my speculation is that 3G bandwidth data should definitely cost less than $10 or 5€ per GB. If Google is able to purchase 1 Petabyte of 3G data from a telecom carrier for $10 per GB, guaranteed best effort bandwidth not throttled for VOIP, then what would stop Google from offering 100MB free bandwidth per month to users of unlocked Android phones, to use for basically as much VOIP over 3G using Google Voice, Gmail, basic Gmaps and basic Web browsing as most users would need. Thus get an unlocked Android phone with a Google SIM card and get unlimited free VOIP and 100mb/month data for free on ad-supported Google services or purchase more data for a certain price for example $10 per GB to use whenever you want, not needed to be renewed each month. I am probably far over-estimating the cost of 3G data bandwidth, the price per GB is probably below 1€ per GB, unless telecom carriers just refuse the deal and that they wouldn’t accept to sell any 3G cellular bandwidth to Google.

I have been campaigning for free VOIP on WiFi and 3G for years, since I have been very active fanboy of all Archos Internet Tablets since the Archos PMA400 released in 2004 on my other site http://archosfans.com, where my hope has always been to some day have better telecom system that doesn’t try to sell you a $2500 2-year contract with a $150 smartphone. But instead move towards improving the smart device, implement better optimized software through Linux (Android enables that for the first time), larger higher resolution screens (4.8″ 800×480 like Archos 5 Internet Tablet is my favorite size and resolution), and also some day, make it possible for people to just buy the bandwidth that they need and not charge unreasonable prices anymore for voice and sms services.

Here are some of the sites that have been posting my speculation over the past couple of days:

http://www.androidguys.com/2009/12/14/reuters-nexus-one-available-directly-through-google-website-january-5/

http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2009/12/15/google-nexus-one-phone-price-details-cdma-version-may-follow/

http://news.softpedia.com/news/More-HTC-Nexus-One-Details-Availability-Pricing-Boot-Animation-129741.shtml

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/62660/google-phone-rumor-roundup-fcc-approval-pricing-and-availability/

http://www.product-reviews.net/2009/12/15/google-nexus-one-pricing-details/

http://androidandme.com/2009/12/news/android-rumor-report-nexus-one-to-cost-199/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=1517

http://www.i4u.com/article29235.html

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/12/google_nexus_one_to_cost_199.html

http://www.slashgear.com/peek-ceo-gets-google-nexus-one-hands-on-price-speculation-increases-1666131/

http://www.geardiary.com/2009/12/16/nexus-one-google-phone-pricing-rumors-round-up/

http://www.mobilemag.com/2009/12/15/google-to-sell-nexus-one-unlocked-for-199/

http://pixelatedgeek.com/2009/12/more-google-phone-rumors-grain-of-salt/

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/aexhb/google_phone_199_without_contract99_for_google/ (1088+ comments!)

http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2009/12/15/google-nexus-one-phone-price-details-cdma-version-may-follow/

http://www.hackchasers.com/news/nexus-one-le-5-janvier-2010-date-de-lancement/

http://richard.gluga.com/2009/12/googles-nexus-one-with-free-data.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/14/AR2009121403454.html

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More of my speculation on Google Phone Nexus One hardware and services pricing

Posted by – December 14, 2009

EDIT: Google has not confirmed any pricing for the Google Phone Nexus One. You can read my latest post backing up my speculations on what I expect Google will price it, what I think Google should price it: http://armdevices.net/2009/12/16/the-blogosphere-reports-my-nexus-one-pricing-speculation-as-fact/

As I have been posting in comments on mediamemo.allthingsd.com, gizmodo.com and androidguys.com, I enjoy speculating about features and prices of phones and business models. So let me post here the prices that I expect this first Google Phone to be sold at and some of what I expect of its hardware specifications:

– $200 sold through all retailers, Best Buy, Amazon, Wal Mart and any others. Unlocked, for use on any network, but I think it may come with a so-called Google SIM card (read further below)

– Google may provide a subsidy up to $100 for long-time and very active Google users. So if you buy it online using your Google Account, they may provide you with an instant rebate. If you buy it for $200 in retail stores, Google can still provide you the online $100 rebate to use on the Google Android Marketplace, on Google Checkout stores or even on extra data for your Google SIM card (read futher below).

– My speculation is that Google may provide up to 100mb of free data usage per month to all Android users with a Google SIM card (read futher below). The 100mb per month would be enough for as much Google Voice, Gmail, Gtalk, and basic web browsing that most people need (disabling bandwidth intensive things such as images can easily be setup). No contracts needed for those 100mb per month, but those may only work for use on Google services, for low bandwidth Android apps or for basic web browsing. In any ways, there would be a bandwidth usage counter clearly displayed at the top of the Android user interface next to the battery meter. The free 100mb per month may be throttled and may sometimes be limited to GPRS type of speeds.

– Extra bandwidth could be purchased in one click, such as I expect 1GB for $10 or 5€ is possible. That extra GB of bandwidth would be usable at any point in time and not need to be renewed every month.

– A monthly $30 or 20€ bandwidth package would provide up to 5GB in the USA or 10GB in Europe per month of unrestricted and full speed 3G bandwidth usage.

– Thus the overall Bill Of Material and Manufacturing costs for a Google Nexus One is probably below $150, so Google can very likely sell it below $200 with 8GB built-in storage and with MicroSD for storage expansion. Google doesn’t look for making profits on hardware, they will make their profits on ads over the several months or several years that the hardware is being used.

The Google SIM card speculation:

– All those bandwidth speculations would work using the Google SIM card on any unlocked Android phone. Though since the Nexus One would be unlocked, any other SIM card could be used as well. And thus, competitors or telecom carriers themselves can provide SIM cards with pre-paid, with or without subscriptions for other packages of data usage. I think Google would allow Microsoft and others to take part in financing those free 100mb per month so users would be able to use competing online services and VOIP providers for free as well.

The calculation and speculation for a worldwide Google SIM card bandwidth service should thus be based on trying to not only guess if carriers will allow Google to turn them into dumb pipes of bandwidth, on the other hand, we should try to guess what price Google may pay to buy 3G data bandwidth in bulk from the carriers and thus at what price Google may sell it back to Android users without the need of monthly data subscriptions. My guess is that $10 per GB in the USA and 5€ per GB in Europe should be more than enough payment for the 3G data bandwidth. And that most likely Google should be able to purchase that for much lower prices if Google negociates deals for several Petabytes of 3G data bandwidth with the carriers. Thus giving away 100MB of bandwidth per unlocked Android user per month, would most likely cost a lot less than $1 per month to Google, thus that would be something Google should be able to give to unlocked Android users for free. But even if carriers would charge Google as much as $10 per GB for 3G data bandwidth, I believe that my speculation on the Google SIM card could still make a lot of sense.

Because Google would negociate for 3G data bandwidth with all carriers in every country. I believe that it should be possible for users to seamlessly and freely roam for data usage in other countries. That is, as long as they do use a Google SIM card for unlocked Android phones.

Google Phone Nexus One
Source for picture: http://www.engadget.com/

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The Google Phone, guessing on the price and a possible picture

Posted by – December 13, 2009

This may be a picture of the Google Phone:

Google Phone Nexus One

From rumors on Techcrunch, this may be a pre-paid only $100 device, for WiFi and pre-paid 3G Voice over IP usage such as on Google Voice. Exactly the revolutionary business model that I have been talking about for a while. My guess on the Google Phone price, or what I think it should cost is following:

$100 for the 3.7″ high density WVGA Google Phone Nexus One
$150 for the 4.8″ medium density Google Tablet Nexus XL

All should come based on ARM Cortex A8 processors, probably OLED capacitative on Nexus One and LCD resistive on the Nexus XL. My suggestion is basically that the Nexus XL may be similar to my favorite consumer electronics device the Archos 5 Internet Tablet which I talk about in countless videos: http://armdevices.net/?s=archos and on my other site: http://archosfans.com

The most important factor here would be if the rumors are true and if my guessing is right, that the Google Phone and Tablet will be the first pre-paid Android phone and tablet. Affordable, my guessing also may even make it so that Google may not only sell it through all retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Wal Mart, Media Markt, Aldi and such, but that one may even be able to buy it on google’s own website and based on how active one has been on Google over the past few years, Google may even subsidize the purchase price of the phone or tablet. That is, cause Google can know it will more likely make more money on mobile ads from users who use Google services a lot. This way, look forward to Google Phone at $50, Google Tablet for $100 and even the Google Laptop/Tablet/E-reader at $150.

Some times, I think that it does take a big giant technology company like Google to really invest not only in the platform, not only in software, but also dedicate teams of hardware engineers into actually releasing own branded hardware on the market and push the boundaries in terms of business models to apply to the distribution of such technology. To push things forward faster, Google needs to make hardware.

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Huawei U8220 Android T-Mobile Pulse

Posted by – September 5, 2009

Here’s Huawei’s first Android phone sold exclusively on T-Mobile in the markets that T-Mobile is selling in. It has a decent 3.5″ 320×240 touchscreen.