Samsung processor chaos, disappointments, and their current SoC future - Galaxy S 4 General
about exynos octa and future of exynos and exynos based mobile devices.
Over the past few months there have been a lot of talks going on about the system on a chip (SoC) choices that Samsung’s Mobile division has made for their recent and upcoming products; now new information has shed more light as to how these choices came to be, their reasoning, and what the repercussions for both the company and their users are.
Back in January, during the official announcement CES 2013, and as early as several weeks earlier as the internet rumour-mill and Korean analysts predicted that the Galaxy S4 would come with the company’s own Exynos Octa SoC, most people were not be aware what is going on behind the scenes at Samsung.
Samsung’s System LSI Business, a business unit of the company’s Semiconductor division, has had several SoC projects in their pipeline. We know for certain of the 5410 (Octa), the 5450 and 5440, both quad-core A15 chips that seem to never have been released. Other rumoured projects were the 5210, a supposed big.LITTLE chip in a 2 + 2 configuration.
Something went on during last winter that panicked the mobile division to change SoC provider for many variants of the S4. Mounting evidence of this can be found in the overlapping local-specific variants in the official source code of both Qualcomm and Exynos platforms. JF based variants, which are based on the Snapdragon chips, overlapped JA based variants, based on the Exynos platform. Korean (jf_ktt, jf_lgt, jf_skt <> jaltektt, jaltelgt, jalteskt), European (jf_eur <> jalte), and Japanese (jf_dcm <> jaltedcm) variants were developed for both platforms. The Korean variants ended up being the sole ones to actually hit the market with the Exynos platform, other than the global 3G version of which there’s no evident Qualcomm counterpart.
Chaotic development for the whole phone seems to have been the norm: Many parts changed supplier in prototype revisions, such as the Amtel touchscreen controller which gave way to a Synaptics counterpart, a MagnaChip AMOLED controller which is missing in action, and Philips LED controller which was shelved for a Texas Instruments IC. All of the prior seem like last-minute changes simply for the fact that their drivers and firmwares are delivered in the shipping product, even if they’re not used. A well-planned product is certainly something you would not call the S4.
One of the early reported reasons for the processor change was the unexpected power consumption of the Exynos. While this remains partly true and undoubtedly had an impact, the other reasons are far more sinister.
As a reminder, the Exynos 5410, as a big.LITTLE chip by design, is supposed to have different kinds of operating modes, mostly something that is defined and limited only by software:
- Cluster-migration; where only either one or the other quad-core clusters works at any one time.
- Core-migration; where both clusters can work in tandem but only have up to 4 physical CPUs online, but any mix of A7 and A15 cores can be achieved.
- Heterogeneous multiprocessing: All 8 cores are online at once.
The problem is that to achieve any of the latter two operating modes, a specific piece of hardware is needed that allows efficient and useful use of those models: the Cache-Coherrent-Interconect (CCI). As per ARM’s own claims: “Hardware coherency with CoreLink CCI-400 is a fundamental part of ARM big.LITTLE processing.”
While it has been obvious for several months that the person behind the SamsungExynos twitter account is nothing but a clueless PR representative, the above claim is nothing short of a lie.
We have information from several sources that Exynos’s CCI is inherently crippled in silicon. It is not functional or even powered on in the shipping product (i9500). In fact, this has been such of an issue, that as a result, the chip was almost cancelled. It was reportedly only salvaged by having it work in the cluster migration policy and bypass the CCI entirely. While contradicting, it questions the validity of ARM’s own videos while demonstrating the Octa.
Internally at SLSI, as many as three projects were cancelled late last year. We don’t know the reasons for their cancellation, however it is said that the issues are related, and unacceptable power consumption also plays a big role.
One can argue that ARM’s Cortex A15 is partly to blame here: The inherent architecture is to power consuming to be implemented in a smart-phone. big.LITTLE provides major breathing-room, but only in scenarios where continuous load is not an issue. HD gaming is a major Achilles heel where power consumption can run rampant. Nvidia is having it much worse with their Tegra 4: With only a single tablet design win besides their own Shield gaming console, it’s a chip that needs to, and will be, quickly forgotten.
Plagued by delays, hardware bugs, and high power consumption, one could view the Exynos 5410 as nothing short of a failure. In fact, Samsung’s Mobile division was so dismayed at the whole situation that their next major products will completely forego the company’s own Exynos chips and go straight with Qualcomm’s offerings.
Reports that the Note 3 would come with the S800 match with this information, and are probably very correct.
With confirmed designs such as the Galaxy Tab 3 coming with an Intel processor, and the rest of the new Galaxy line-up shipping with various variants of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S-series, the mobile division should be lauded for providing the user with the best possible experience – even if that involves skipping the Exynos. They have proven that they have no qualms to use a wide array of third-party suppliers (ST-Ericsson, Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm) to base their products on, and this strategy is proven to be successful.
As for SLSI, things look very bleak for Samsung’s in-house processors. The business is failing to cater, not only in terms of support, like providing proper hardware documentation and source code to the public, but the current line-up is in shambles also in terms of hardware.
Lackluster graphics performance and outdated GPUs have become sort of a habit for the company. This reportedly is due to an unwillingness to spend the money on IP licenses from third-party companies, and the use of Mali GPUs in their SoCs is due to a free licensing agreement they receive from ARM as a lead partner. The surprise use of the SGX 544MP3 in the Exynos 5410 is due to panic caused by Mali’s own T6xx GPUs: again an issue of extremely excessive power consumption. The first generation Midgard lineup was quickly scrapped, leaving the Exynos 5250 and its T604 as something of an orphan. Products like the T658 never saw the light of day and are not even mentioned anymore on ARM’s website.
Meanwhile, while their shipping products are failing to properly compete, Samsung is spending a lot of money on developing their own GPU IP from scratch. Not much information is available as to when we will see this in actual products, but it will eventually come, if not cancelled or delayed due to its unorthodox implementation of an FPGA-like re-programmable design which might be hit-or-miss. Imagination’s Rogue architecture and years of experience as a leading GPU IP provider will be tough competition.
CPU wise, things look just as bleak. Qualcomm currently dominates the performance per Watt scale for the high-end with the newest Krait architectures. With no custom design in the works, as done by Apple or Qualcomm, and no A57 or A53 as architectural refreshes from ARM, nor a new 20nm manufacturing process coming until 2014, the Exynos A15 line-up looks incapable of competing in the near-future.
(Disclaimer- sammobile)
the most shocking thing about this article is it comes from one of the most reliable site about anything and everything related to Samsun mobile division!!!
So you did not write this yourself (from the sounds of the last line you wrote), but you don't provide a link to the original source or credit beyond a veiled reference to sammobile?
Let me guess, so Exynos Octa is a fail product? :laugh:
windozeanti said:
Let me guess, so Exynos Octa is a fail product? :laugh:
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well its not exactly a fail product, cause as the article and research said, the final product has not got enough homework as it deserved.
im pretty sure samsung would fix this in Note 3 and i highly doubt that samsung would introduce Note 3 without Exynos processor. it will have Snapdragon 800 (i wish) but it will also have exynos version. samsung would not leave its own chip just like that!
windozeanti said:
Let me guess, so Exynos Octa is a fail product? :laugh:
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It runs the fastest mobile phone ever, it just never reached it's full potential, you know topping out round 2.3GHz, proper core migration for efficiency and total smoothness, stronger GPU. Then again, it's still the industry leader, but not without issues, so I guess Sammy will work on it, possibly bringing it over 20nm.
OMG !! after reading i want to sell my i9500
this device is 50-50 ... 50% updates 50% legacy !
if this will be considered a fail project i will break this into two !!!! rawr ~~~ im so dammnn dead !
gdonanthony said:
OMG !! after reading i want to sell my i9500
this device is 50-50 ... 50% updates 50% legacy !
if this will be considered a fail project i will break this into two !!!! rawr ~~~ im so dammnn dead !
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come on guys dont be like this! u should be really proud of ur S4! blunder from samsung aside, why dont u feel pride on ur S4 that being a bit not what it should have been it still is the fastest smartphone on the market right now and that will remain until Note 3 comes out...!
after reading what uve posted i feel my S4 i9500 suxxx bigtime
Wow,
I'm happy i got the I9505
This post is in compliance with the national potato safety regulation.
[Galaxy S 4 LTE]
but still i think andrie will not give up on this big.LITTLE arch though,,i hope so XD
Why is this thread 60% of whining while only 40% of problem solving? I'll quote what I said in another thread.
Tears for Fears said:
Why are you guys whining? I9500 is *THE* fastest smartphone in business. This flaw only means lesser battery but the battery is still very sufficient. GSMArena rated it 65h. To put this in perspective, Sony Xperia Z and HTC One got 48h. Galaxy S III got 50h, iPhone 5 got 51h, LG Optimus G Pro got 50h and Nokia Lumia 920 got 44h. Why are you whining when you get 65h? That's A LOT more than the flagships of other major manufacturers! Yes, if big.LITTLE would be implemented correctly, you'd get maybe 70-75h rating but in my opinion, 65h is HUGE compared to others' 45-50h.
Really, stop complaining and enjoy having the most powerful smartphone on Earth with an amazing battery life!
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Now can we please stop whining? It does no good to this thread.
Tears for Fears said:
Why is this thread 60% of whining while only 40% of problem solving? I'll quote what I said in another thread.
Now can we please stop whining? It does no good to this thread.
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I see your intentions
But would you let these companies screw your hard earned money?
At least let corporations work hard at providing us a product worth every cent.
Samsung did a terrible job at rushing things with the device. They have sacrificed a huge margin of time trying to implement protocols which they knew in the first place would have a risk of being feasible for the entire market.
So now they defray their failures to us by selling a partially finished product with huge non-uniform variants of the same device name then make all these crazy impulsive changes then run away with our money then denying most of the issues that are clearly present.
They even don't document their own chip pretty well neither.
So we just got screwed by samsung.
Better rick roll ourselves at most.
This post is in compliance with the national potato safety regulation.
[Galaxy S 4 LTE]
aami.aami said:
Something went on during last winter that panicked the mobile division to change SoC provider for many variants of the S4. Mounting evidence of this can be found in the overlapping local-specific variants in the official source code of both Qualcomm and Exynos platforms.
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Or, as is typical in the development stage of many products, the s/w coding got ahead of the decisions on h/w so they coded for both eventualities. Since none of us work for Samsung any assumption of "panic" is a wild ass guess. Both Octa and S-600 don't come with an in-built baseband. S-600 already has the necessary interfaces and drivers while they'd have to be written for Octa. Maybe that work couldn't have been done in time considering all the different LTE markets that would need to be coded for. That, or it was just simpler and easier to use S-600 in LTE markets. They used Octa/LTE in Korea, their home town market, so I highly doubt they did that if it wasn't considered their "premium" offering. Last year for the SGS3, shipments were 1/3 LTE and 2/3 HSPA. This year it's the reverse. So favoring S-600 over Octa could be purely a market driven decision based on the larger availability of LTE this year. I agree something could have gone wrong that caused a last minute shift to S-600 and away from Octa but some stray code found in the kernel isn't a smoking gun.
Chaotic development for the whole phone seems to have been the norm: Many parts changed supplier in prototype revisions, such as the Amtel touchscreen controller which gave way to a Synaptics counterpart, a MagnaChip AMOLED controller which is missing in action, and Philips LED controller which was shelved for a Texas Instruments IC. All of the prior seem like last-minute changes simply for the fact that their drivers and firmwares are delivered in the shipping product, even if they’re not used. A well-planned product is certainly something you would not call the S4.
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Has anyone here run a large-scale product development group? Or worked on a h/w or s/w project that's the scope of launching a major electronic device? It's always chaos. Especially the last mile. The SGS4 could have been more chaotic than other devices Samsung's released but since none of us were on the project teams we're just guessing that last minute decisions were made because of crisis and error.
The problem is that to achieve any of the latter two operating modes, a specific piece of hardware is needed that allows efficient and useful use of those models: the Cache-Coherrent-Interconect (CCI). As per ARM’s own claims: “Hardware coherency with CoreLink CCI-400 is a fundamental part of ARM big.LITTLE processing.”
We have information from several sources that Exynos’s CCI is inherently crippled in silicon. It is not functional or even powered on in the shipping product (i9500). In fact, this has been such of an issue, that as a result, the chip was almost cancelled. It was reportedly only salvaged by having it work in the cluster migration policy and bypass the CCI entirely. While contradicting, it questions the validity of ARM’s own videos while demonstrating the Octa.
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This is the way big.LITTLE is supposed to work. I'd like to understand what's missing and what replaced it.
As a reminder, the Exynos 5410, as a big.LITTLE chip by design, is supposed to have different kinds of operating modes, mostly something that is defined and limited only by software:
- Cluster-migration; where only either one or the other quad-core clusters works at any one time.
- Core-migration; where both clusters can work in tandem but only have up to 4 physical CPUs online, but any mix of A7 and A15 cores can be achieved.
- Heterogeneous multiprocessing: All 8 cores are online at once.
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There are only two operating models. Why is Samsung choosing to implement one over the other "screwing" anyone? The dev community not having a toy to play with doesn't mean Octa's a commercial failure because 99.9% of i9500 owners don't give a crap that it could be operating in two modes but instead is only operating in one.
Plagued by delays, hardware bugs, and high power consumption, one could view the Exynos 5410 as nothing short of a failure. In fact, Samsung’s Mobile division was so dismayed at the whole situation that their next major products will completely forego the company’s own Exynos chips and go straight with Qualcomm’s offerings. Reports that the Note 3 would come with the S800 match with this information, and are probably very correct. With confirmed designs such as the Galaxy Tab 3 coming with an Intel processor, and the rest of the new Galaxy line-up shipping with various variants of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S-series, the mobile division should be lauded for providing the user with the best possible experience – even if that involves skipping the Exynos. They have proven that they have no qualms to use a wide array of third-party suppliers (ST-Ericsson, Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm) to base their products on, and this strategy is proven to be successful.
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Does anyone here know what the production goals are for Octa? And over what time frame? Without knowing that how could 1/3 of SGS4's shipping with Octa be considered a failure? Qualcomm licenses ARM technology as the basis for all their designs. So the chip after S-800 will be big.LITTLE also as ARM's spent two years developing it and spent several billion dollars to do so. Exynos 5410 is the first and only commercial implementation of big.LITTLE. I highly doubt it's perfect as V1 of anything rarely is. But all this speculation of failure and use of adjectives like "chaos" is based on a very narrow and shortsighted view of what's basically a long view game.
Here are the white papers on big.LITTLE; three from ARM and one from Samsung. The Samsung paper's been authored by their Principal Engineer who has a PhD. When someone here who's got a PhD that’s being paid $500K+ a year and responsible for the s/w running hundreds of millions of devices writes a similar paper with as much fact and detail in it showing why big.LITTLE's a failure I'll be all ears. Until them I'm hoping the N3 has Octa because (at least to me) the long term benefit of having a big.LITTLE equipped device outweighs the short-term gains of going with Qualcomm's interpretation of a five-year old ARM design. For a site that's supposed to be technical you guys sure have a sour view on new and emerging technologies.
http://www.arm.com/files/downloads/big_LITTLE_Final_Final.pdf
http://www.arm.com/files/pdf/Advances_in_big.LITTLE_Technology_for_Power_and_Energy_Savings.pdf
http://www.arm.com/files/downloads/Software_Techniques_for_ARM_big.LITTLE_Systems.pdf
http://www.arm.com/files/downloads/Benefits_of_the_big.LITTLE_architecture.pdf
How would we feel barry with our 9500s without you barry.
Seriously, as a consumer, all i want is to know that i have the best and fastest smartphone when i traded my hard earned cash for it. As long as i know that i can run my desired apps faster than any other device out there, i know that i have gotten my money's worth. I couldnt care less if samsung hasnt done enough homework to utilize the big little technology at its fullest.
So please lets stop with the whining and complaining about the 9500 because its not helping out those who have gotten it. All of this to me feels like all bitterness. No punn intended. Just my thoughts. Thanks!
I knew that something little will be wrong with the octa, since it is the first time release, I think that all of these issues will be corrected by Samsung surely. I will stick with my GT-I9100G (beast-of-a-smartphone BTW is giving fight nowadays) until a new octa-core with those issues fixed comes up, may be the note 3
Sent from my Galaxy S2 using xda app-developers app
So i need to sell my octa one
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
What's the big deal guys? So big.LITTLE isn't working as expected. We're still using the A15 processor which is a beast. The only benefit of big.LITTLE is enhanced battery life and even that is on par with the other flagship devices.
crzr said:
I think that all of these issues will be corrected by Samsung surely.
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One of the points OP made that's spot on is how competitive the mobile SoC business is. Unless Samsung's planning to exit the business which nothing points to, they'll have to keep innovating and providing cost effective, powerful, and energy efficient solutions to power not only future Samsung devices but other manufacturer's devices as well. Designing, engineering, and producing a SoC costs several hundred million dollars. Committing to big.LITTLE wasn't a "throw it against the wall and see if it'll stick" decision.
Samsung's supposed to sell 80MM SGS4's this year which means 24MM (1/3) of them will be Octa. HTC's projecting 20MM One's. That means there will be more Octa devices produced than all of HTC's flagship S-600 device. So I'd hardly call it a failure. And it’s great that Samsung’s experimenting with Intel. The 10.1” G-Tab 3 that’s supposed to have an Intel chip will probably sell 10MM units; if it’s the only SoC used which some are speculating it’ll only be for certain markets.
Here are some excerpts from Samsung’s Q1 earning’s release talking about their semi-conductor business. It certainly doesn’t sound like the division is in trouble or Samsung’s walking away from it any time soon.
As for this year's capital expenditure, Samsung Electronics executed a combined total of 3.9 trillion won for the quarter. The Semiconductor and Display Panel segments were each accountable for 1.5 trillion won ($1.3B USD) in capex spending. Samsung is poised to increase investment beginning from the second half of the fiscal year to preempt rising demand for differentiated products and to harness its competitiveness in the high-tech industry.
Samsung's Semiconductor businesses - including Memory and System LSI - posted consolidated 8.58 trillion won in revenue ($2.8B USD), a 11-percent drop from a quarter earlier. The Memory chip unit logged 5.12 trillion won in earnings but, compared with the previous period, quarter-on-quarter revenue retreated 4 percent.Profitability for the System LSI Business was hampered by seasonally slow demand in set products that use logic chips.Considering Octa is "V1" and that it out-benchmarks S-600 and gets very close to the same battery life the way it was shipped I'd very much call it a success. S-600 is nothing more than an evolution of previous Snapdragon chips. So that Samsung/ARM's first use of big.LITTLE is so competitive against a years old architecture that OEM’s are comfortable with implementing says a lot about what Samsung/ARM have done and what the upside potential is.
AnandTech talking about S4 - At present, this is the same Krait CPU as what we've seen in MSM8960 in phones like the USA versions of the Galaxy S 3 and HTC One X. Later on, Krait v3 will emerge with higher IPC and shorter critical paths (and clocks up to 1.7 or 2 GHz) and a resulting 10-15% boost in performance. For now however we're looking at 1.5 GHz APQ8064 with a Krait v2 inside and Qualcomm's newest scalar GPU architecture with Adreno 320.AnandTech talking about S-600 - Also being announced today is the Snapdragon 600. This part integrates four Krait 300 cores running at up to 1.9GHz. Adreno 320 handles GPU duties, although with an increased clock speed. Compared to the current Snapdragon S4, the 600 is expected to improve performance by up to 40% if you combine IPC and frequency increases.
I love this phone. ( I wish they'd fix this M****R F*****G Camera Reboot issue.) But I bought it because of the lies they told me.
hoezay said:
I love this phone. ( I wish they'd fix this M****R F*****G Camera Reboot issue.) But I bought it because of the lies they told me.
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What lies? When did they tell anything about how the CPU will work? Can you provide a link please?
Related
Quad Cores on HOLD for the US (AT&T).
It seems that there are a few carriers out there still having a hard time working with the advancements of Quad-Core devices and though the processors being used (Tegra 3 chips) aren't what we're use too (Snapdragons) there are a few carriers worried about whether or not they will be able to write software right away either. HTC One X phone gets quad-core CPU -- except in U.S. Progress doesn't come without a price and in the case of the new HTC One X smartphone, the price of running on AT&T's 4G LTE network in the U.S. will be a downgrade from a quad-core processor to a dual-core CPU. The HTC One X will sit at the top of a new line of One smartphones, which the Taiwanese electronics maker showed off for the first time at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. The One X will sport a huge 4.7-inch touchscreen with 1,280 x 720 pixel resolution, 32 gigabytes of built-in storage, 1 gigabyte of RAM and an 8-megapixel/1080p rear camera. It'll also run Google's Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, topped with HTC's Sense user interface. And when it begins to arrive at retailers in April, the One X will be part of a growing trend in Android handsets that feature quad-core processors, except for the U.S. variation, which will be called the One XL in Asia and Australia. The U.S. version, which will be sold by AT&T, will ship with a 1.5-gigahertz, dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor rather than the quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. Dual-core is still plenty fast, but the difference is a bit disappointing as there are no quad-core phones sold here yet. The reason for the CPU switcheroo is that Nvidia's processor lacked compatibility with AT&T's 4G LTE hardware when the One X was being developed. As first reported by CNet, phones with quad-core Tegra 3 chips and AT&T 4G LTE capability will arrive eventually, but the timing was off for the One X. Another major feature for the One X and One XL will be the inclusion of Beats Audio, which HTC says will offer a better listening experience for music, videos and games. After all, what's the point of a $300-million deal with Beats By Dr. Dre if Beats Audio technology doesn't make it into your flagship phone? Click to expand... Click to collapse Story found here for more information and further links:http://www.latimes.com/business/tec...hanks-to-att-4g-lte-20120227,0,6217626.story Personally my concern is that T-Mobile is picking up the One as well and even though T-Mo doesn't support LTE service this can still put us T-Mo customers at a disadvantage if the devices come to us as Dual-Cores. I've had my MT4G for a while now and though I got it for cheap money it's getting old as any phones life depletes in our community fairly fast considering the amount of flashing we all do, but with this being an option for the carriers including our own this might effect the cost between the Quad and Dual versions. Well lets see where this puts us in a month or so but for now it looks like I'm buying a new extended-life battery online somewhere till the dust settles. Example of what it should be.... But with a SD card slot.... HTC One X is an exquisite device that boasts the best of what current mobile technology has to offer, housing an NVIDIA quad-core Tegra 3 processor and featuring Android 4.0 with the HTC’s Sense 4.0 UI. Other features of the HTC One X include: Dimensions: 134.4 x 69.9 x 8.9 mm, 130 grams Micro SIM 4.7″ HD LCD screen, with gorilla glass protection 1280×720 resolution 1.5 Ghz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor 1 GB RAM 32 GB built-in memory, no microSD slot 8MP rear camera with ImageSense, 1.3MP front camera WiFi 802.11 b/g/n NFC support 1800 mAH battery Beats Audio integration Click to expand... Click to collapse
Interesting find I too wonder how all of this will turn out. I'd rather get it unlocked with quad. But I'm 14 and don't have that money haha. Sent from my Sense 4.0 Glacier using XDA Premium.
invasion2 said: Interesting find I too wonder how all of this will turn out. I'd rather get it unlocked with quad. But I'm 14 and don't have that money haha. Sent from my Sense 4.0 Glacier using XDA Premium. Click to expand... Click to collapse Well the concern is that all of these devices were to come solely as Quad Cores and there was a specific price point for it because of that, carriers in the US are known for changing the price point because they can get customers to pay the original price of the Quad Cores for the Dual Cores. This pushes the price of the Quads up a little hitting our pockets and they realize our community will go after the better of the two, I think HTC should have just forced the carriers hand to work on the quad cores instead of giving them the option of downgrading the hardware.
Well T-Mobile is moving to LTE...invasion, I feel you pain bro, I wish I had enough money to buy an unlocked quad core but I would rather go to college lol. Anyway, I heard the quad core isn't better than the snapdragons Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA
invasion2 said: Interesting find I too wonder how all of this will turn out. I'd rather get it unlocked with quad. But I'm 14 and don't have that money haha. Sent from my Sense 4.0 Glacier using XDA Premium. Click to expand... Click to collapse You're 14? And I'm in college and don't plan on spending that type of money on a phone ever, I'd much rather buy a tablet, which I will soon be doing. Going for the new Asus tabs as soon as they come out.
Orical said: It seems that there are a few carriers out there still having a hard time working with the advancements of Quad-Core devices and though the processors being used (Tegra 3 chips) aren't what we're use too (Snapdragons) there are a few carriers worried about whether or not they will be able to write software right away either. Story found here for more information and further links:http://www.latimes.com/business/tec...hanks-to-att-4g-lte-20120227,0,6217626.story Personally my concern is that T-Mobile is picking up the One as well and even though T-Mo doesn't support LTE service this can still put us T-Mo customers at a disadvantage if the devices come to us as Dual-Cores. I've had my MT4G for a while now and though I got it for cheap money it's getting old as any phones life depletes in our community fairly fast considering the amount of flashing we all do, but with this being an option for the carriers including our own this might effect the cost between the Quad and Dual versions. Well lets see where this puts us in a month or so but for now it looks like I'm buying a new extended-life battery online somewhere till the dust settles. Example of what it should be.... But with a SD card slot.... Click to expand... Click to collapse Don't be fooled by the number of cores a phones has. The AT&T One X has a next gen S4 Dual-core cpu which is based off the ARM A15 core unlike the Tegra 3 which based on ARM A9 cores. The Qualcomm S4 Dual-core are as fast and in some cases faster then Tegra 3 4+1 cpu's due to the newer chip design. Its not a downgrade by any means. T-mobile is getting the One S. That particular phone has always been specked with the S4 Dual-core cpu and will be HSPA+ 42 capable.
How many times will I have to write it... It just means that your average journalist is no less stupid than your average customer, and can't do a basic research. It might be forgivable for customers, some of which are just 14-year-old kids with no understanding of anything, but it's less forgivable for journalists who should at least pretend having a brain. Here's a comparison between dual-core S4 and quad-core T3 by Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5563/qualcomms-snapdragon-s4-krait-vs-nvidias-tegra-3 Looks like Tegra3 will have a hard time even trying to keep up. And the funniest thing is that One S, if HTC won't cripple it intentionally, will be way more powerful than One X - because it will have both the CPU speed advantage and, with lower resolution, GPU advantage. Plus, it's VERY old news already.
Jack_R1 said: How many times will I have to write it... It just means that your average journalist is no less stupid than your average customer, and can't do a basic research. It might be forgivable for customers, some of which are just 14-year-old kids with no understanding of anything, but it's less forgivable for journalists who should at least pretend having a brain. Here's a comparison between dual-core S4 and quad-core T3 by Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5563/qualcomms-snapdragon-s4-krait-vs-nvidias-tegra-3 Looks like Tegra3 will have a hard time even trying to keep up. And the funniest thing is that One S, if HTC won't cripple it intentionally, will be way more powerful than One X - because it will have both the CPU speed advantage and, with lower resolution, GPU advantage. Plus, it's VERY old news already. Click to expand... Click to collapse Its not worth it....
smooth3d said: Don't be fooled by the number of cores a phones has. The AT&T One X has a next gen S4 Dual-core cpu which is based off the ARM A15 core unlike the Tegra 3 which based on ARM A9 cores. The Qualcomm S4 Dual-core are as fast and in some cases faster then Tegra 3 4+1 cpu's due to the newer chip design. Its not a downgrade by any means. T-mobile is getting the One S. That particular phone has always been specked with the S4 Dual-core cpu and will be HSPA+ 42 capable. Click to expand... Click to collapse My intention of posting this is to show how the market is effected over a network of carriers and manufacturers when product is effected by the investment through marketing and demand, as it's stated in the main post the chips were not going to work with the software planed for them so in turn they changed the device to run a better core (though half of what was originally advertised) to prevent having to re-write the framework. If the case were specific to the fact that the Tegra chips were going to be the problem then why not pony up for the quad core snapdragons and boost the price for the device as they always have in the past, it's not like they're worried about what their going to charge the consumer as that's never been the case. Personally I would have just waited for a contract deal and weighed my options when it was time, I'm not one to just run out and buy something just because the "Advertised public hype" says it's the best thing since sliced bread I wait to see what happens after the lust settles to get the facts.
Quad-core Snapdragons were not on the market yet (and you can see that there are no devices with those scheduled to arrive at the time of release for One X/S), thus they couldn't be utilized, making your point void. AFAIK, Qualcomm's competitor to T3 is dual-core S4, and this is what the device manufacturers will be choosing from, until the quad-core phone-oriented S4 will arrive. The current 8064 is not suggested for LTE phone configuration - read this article, it'll help to understand, why: http://gigaom.com/mobile/qualcomm-no-quad-core-phones-at-mwc-but-well-have-something-better/ The carriers had their choice, and chose what they thought would suit them the best, considering the time-to-market, the potential performance/battery life differences etc. That some journalist thinks their choice was wrong - doesn't necessarily mean that it is.
Jack_R1 said: Quad-core Snapdragons were not on the market yet (and you can see that there are no devices with those scheduled to arrive at the time of release for One X/S), thus they couldn't be utilized, making your point void. AFAIK, Qualcomm's competitor to T3 is dual-core S4, and this is what the device manufacturers will be choosing from, until the quad-core phone-oriented S4 will arrive. The current 8064 is not suggested for LTE phone configuration - read this article, it'll help to understand, why: http://gigaom.com/mobile/qualcomm-no-quad-core-phones-at-mwc-but-well-have-something-better/ The carriers had their choice, and chose what they thought would suit them the best, considering the time-to-market, the potential performance/battery life differences etc. That some journalist thinks their choice was wrong - doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Click to expand... Click to collapse Obviously there's a miss communication on how marketing works here, even though they may not have had the option previously doesn't mean they don't have it now. Point is valid. Now that I think of it the Snapdragons have been around for the minimum of a year and the Tegra have been used for twice that and if you read the what you posted it doesn't say the tegra cant do it but it states that it would do it poorly draining battery. I agree with you on that but your missing my point entirely which is with the options they have their going to use other reasons to charge the consumer for over looked issues they can and have the ability to change now. And another thing though it seems to be old news too you others still have yet to see it, this is why people don't post anything they read anymore because some people have no problem trying to shoot down anything posted before a discussion actually produces anything constructive.
Either I don't understand what you're talking about, or you don't understand how the market works - and I'm leaning for the 2nd option. For marketing to have something to show off and plan on, you have to have the actual HW (phone, that is) in the final readiness stage, which means that the HW has been developed for at least 1/2 year ahead of that time. 1 year from CPU manufacturing to phone sales is very good, 9 months is INCREDIBLY OUTSTANDING. Having the CPU ready at point X in time doesn't mean it can be used at that point - it means it can be used at the very least 9 months from that point. There are NO other phones and NOTHING to choose from 9 months ago - but the 2 choices you see now. The only other choice would be to skip international phone launch and wait until either T3+LTE modem combo of some kind is made functional (which could be already done, but we're talking 9 months time ahead, yes?), or to wait until Qualcomm prepares its quad-core for phones (which could also be already done, but again, 9 months ago it wasn't). So, let's see, what would you choose - participate in worldwide launch and use an equally powerful (if not even more powerful) version of the phone sporting LTE support to boot, which nobody else gets, or skip the launch. Oh well, let me think, a very hard choice, is it. What also causes me to doubt you know what you're talking about, is the fact that Snapdragon-based phones have been around Android since Jan 2010 (Nexus One), and Tegra chipset saw first wide use only in its 2nd version, in Jan 2011 (Optimus 2X), a year later, and a couple more months till it was officially available in US. So it's actually 2 years of VERY widespread use for Snapdragon vs 1 year of spotty use (more tablets than phones - barely 2 phones or so, Atrix and Optimux 2X) for Tegra 2. Just the opposite of what you wrote. For having smart discussions, there is a small prerequisite - both sides should know what they're talking about quite well. On this board, such a situation is rarely encountered. So sometimes it's better that people don't just run here posting everything they saw somewhere on the internet - especially if it's a 2nd-grade non-professional article in "business" section of some newspaper, and not a professional analysis article on one of the dedicated HW and Android-related sites.
Jack_R1 said: Either I don't understand what you're talking about, or you don't understand how the market works - and I'm leaning for the 2nd option. For marketing to have something to show off and plan on, you have to have the actual HW (phone, that is) in the final readiness stage, which means that the HW has been developed for at least 1/2 year ahead of that time. 1 year from CPU manufacturing to phone sales is very good, 9 months is INCREDIBLY OUTSTANDING. Having the CPU ready at point X in time doesn't mean it can be used at that point - it means it can be used at the very least 9 months from that point. There are NO other phones and NOTHING to choose from 9 months ago - but the 2 choices you see now. The only other choice would be to skip international phone launch and wait until either T3+LTE modem combo of some kind is made functional (which could be already done, but we're talking 9 months time ahead, yes?), or to wait until Qualcomm prepares its quad-core for phones (which could also be already done, but again, 9 months ago it wasn't). So, let's see, what would you choose - participate in worldwide launch and use an equally powerful (if not even more powerful) version of the phone sporting LTE support to boot, which nobody else gets, or skip the launch. Oh well, let me think, a very hard choice, is it. What also causes me to doubt you know what you're talking about, is the fact that Snapdragon-based phones have been around Android since Jan 2010 (Nexus One), and Tegra chipset saw first wide use only in its 2nd version, in Jan 2011 (Optimus 2X), a year later, and a couple more months till it was officially available in US. So it's actually 2 years of VERY widespread use for Snapdragon vs 1 year of spotty use (more tablets than phones - barely 2 phones or so, Atrix and Optimux 2X) for Tegra 2. Just the opposite of what you wrote. For having smart discussions, there is a small prerequisite - both sides should know what they're talking about quite well. On this board, such a situation is rarely encountered. So sometimes it's better that people don't just run here posting everything they saw somewhere on the internet - especially if it's a 2nd-grade non-professional article in "business" section of some newspaper, and not a professional analysis article on one of the dedicated HW and Android-related sites. Click to expand... Click to collapse Wow how's that high perception of yourself. Im actually surprised how easy it is for you to judge a top paid news publicist. I'll just leave the rest for you to continue your rant on how well educated you are and how well business does for you. I'm not some kid with nothing better to do than sit around and rant, I saw the post which I placed as a reason to see what people thought, it shows the type of people that come on line though.
"Top paid publicist" is paid to make news items, not objective analysis. Objective analysis mostly doesn't interest people, it doesn't play with their emotions (which is usually a prerequisite for creating interest). To make interesting news, you need to forcibly inflate just about any issue you're writing about, in such way that would steer people's emotions. This is exactly what you're seeing in the newspaper. And yes, being a "top paid engineer" that happens to work in this industry, makes you kinda judgmental. I understand that you don't have valid arguments left. OK then.
hmm tmo updated their account app to support android 4.0
Bangincrazy said: hmm tmo updated their account app to support android 4.0 Click to expand... Click to collapse Lol, old news. I said this in one of the dev threads about a week ago. This means some device, whether it's the sensation about to update or the one s is about to come out on T-Mo soon, will give us official ICS on T-Mo, meaning we're going to get wifi calling for ICS finally.
[TECH OPINION] When will phone SoC/Processor technology stabilize?
When do you think phone processor tech will stabilize with software? Moore's laws? It's apparent SoC, GPU development and technology will continue, but processors, just like desktops and notebooks do, are bound to start seeing that point where gains are insignificant to the average user. From 2008 to 2012, we've seen a lot happen. My recollection of it starting from: 2008: G1 was released, 528mhz MSM7201A 2009: Nothing major until the Hero, under MSM7200A, even then was major/minor depending on how you look at it 2010: S1 QSD8250 / OG Desire released, was a reigning champion GSM wise as well as the Nexus One. That was until S2 MSM7x30's came out. CDMA Evo 4G, G2, Desire HD, a lot of which are the "basic smartphones" that still function very adequately today. Samsung just got their gears started somewhere in this time. 2011: In Q3 2011, we start seeing dual-cores becoming the market standard. Samsung's taken a lead in the market penetration with the Exynos SoC's, GNexus, SGS2, are all flagship phones. 2012: So far it seems the S4 (One series) chipsets had the lead for the first half, and we start seeing quad cores. That is until Exynos 4 just entered the fray. We are already seeing 1.5ghz this year Click to expand... Click to collapse It's not a doubt we will see more penta/hexa or some other maximizations (maybe even octas) just sometime the next year or two, but at that point is that even needed to browse the web, check email and run some general apps? A good chunk of cellphone users probably do not play games or processor-intensive tasks, just as a good majority of users in reality are still using core2duo's or core2quads without much problems in daily use seeing no need to upgrade to i7 architectures - games and other major multimedia applications aside. Personally if I had to venture a guess, once SoCs reach 2.0+ dual or quad cores, this is the breaking point to where upgrading can only benefit for hardcore enthusiasts or app/game fanatics. That doesn't seem too long in the future, as this could possibly by the end of this year.
I think that this year will be the year of the S4 processor in the United States. Next year will probably be Quad-core Krait and Higher clocked Tegras/Exynos processors (1.7ghz maybe?) I don't think that stock clock speed will increase beyond 1.8ghz due to heat. Rather, I think efficiency, much like what the S4 is doing for dual core will become the focal point.
I agree with some previous posts.. We are almost at the plateau.. Software is our major downfall in the smartphone segment.. All of these newer phones could be running windows XP(example only) with the specs they are listing.. Drivers and software are holding us back now Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using xda premium
[Q] Is Texas Instruments getting behind?
After Galaxy Nexus and Razr I don´t see any company announcing that they are going to use their chips.
Thats true that OMAP 4430/4460 (1.0 / 1.5Ghz respectively) with SGX540 are behind, especially behind Qualcomm S4 and quad-core Exynos. They were also supposed to release OMAP 4470 (1.8GHz) with SGX544 but I haven't seen it used in any device.
I'm not sure here, but I think that OMAP's don't feature wireless radio technologies, so phone manufacturesrs have to add additional chips what raises the cost.
TI annonced OMAP 5 long time ago, but I don't know what is the progress. OMAP 5 is suppsoed to have dualcore A15 ("Up to 2GHz") + dualcore M4 and SGX544-MPx.
Well TI is going to release the OMAP 5 soon. One of the pros of this processor is that it is easily customizable, and thats why it's used in the Galaxy Nexus. So who knows? OMAP 5 may appear in the next series of Nexus phones.
Yeah idk, this year has been dominated by qualcomm (i hope thats right) and exynos (in the GS3 international) but that is true, Ti seems unusually absent this year.
They are making the Omap 5. 28nm tech has loads of problems,especially high spoilt counts at the factory. Qualcomm are actually switching factories cause of this. TI have stable chips at relatively lower cost. When it's ready you'll see it everywhere. Sent from my U8150 using XDA
Texas Instruments withdraws from smartphones Texas Instruments is dropping from the system-on-chip for smartphones and tablets manufacturing and will give up on its OMAP lineup. The company’s OMAP boards are less and less popular among mobile manufacturers – most of them bet on Qualcomm, while Samsung and Apple are developing their own solutions (Exynos, A6). The major disadvantage of the OMAP chipset is the lack of on-board 3G/4G modem. That forces manufacturers who rely on OMAP chipsets to use additional radio chips, which increases battery consumption and production costs. Now you understand why smartphone manufacturers prefer Qualcomm’s complete solutions, rather than this expensive process. TI says its focus will shift on “to a broader market including industrial clients like carmakers”, though it did not announce specifics and the investors were left wondering. Anyway, TI will continue to support its current clients, but will significantly reduce efforts on developing new OMAP chipsets. The news might come shocking for some, as the TI OMAP 5 was expected to be the first chipset with dual Cortex-A15 CPU, and now it's fate is uncertain. Nonetheless, TI OMAP's presence was barely felt on the market, so the company's exit won't create too much of a disturbance. http://www.gsmarena.com/texas_instruments_backtracks_from_smartphones_goodbye_omap-news-4861.php http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/25/texasinstruments-wireless-idUSL1E8KP5FN20120925?irpc=932
They had great power management on their chips. Too bad. Sent from my U8150 using XDA
[SAMSUNG] to unveil [8-CORE] arm chip
Eight cores, in a mobile processor? Balderdash! But according to EETimes, that's just what Samsung's planning on unveiling in February at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (that sounds so exciting). Now before you get too excited, this isn't - technically speaking - an eight-core processor. It's a dual quad-core, which is to say, a two-processor chip. The design is based on a reference architecture thought up by ARM themselves, dubbed "big.little," and is designed to combine the light-load battery life of a high-efficiency quad-core 28nm ARM A7 chip with a super-hi-po A15 processor for heavy lifting. The exact specifications, for our nerdier readers, are: 1 quad-core ARM A7 chip clocked at 1.2GHz for everyday tasks, and 1 quad-core ARM A15 chip clocked at 1.8GHz w/ 2MB L2 cache for processor-intensive tasks like video games. ARM itself has said the "big.little" project is delivering benefits beyond those expected when the architecture was initially announced, and Samsung's chip should be the first on the market based on the concept. So yes, this will be a new Exynos of some sort. Should you expect this chip in the Galaxy S IV (or whatever Samsung's going to call it - because that's far from a given)? It's possible, but not necessarily likely. The gap between chip announcement and tape-out (mass-production readiness) can be lengthy. With the first batch of Exynos 5 Dual devices just now hitting the market in the form of the new Samsung Chromebook and Nexus 10, this eight-core beast may not be ready in time for the next "next big thing." Samsung could very well specifically be targeting this chip for Chromebooks and Windows RT / Android tablets before taking a dive into smaller form factors, too. Either way, it's exciting business - I can't say I ever tire of technology getting faster. Click to expand... Click to collapse to be honest lately i have started to lose interest in Samsung due to the whole exynos issue and lack of support for developers but if this is to be true then i feel comfortable in making my next device a Samsung (only with this chip ovcourse) lets hope we see this chip come to more devices if it is infact released we will have to wait and see what samsung brings us in 2013 to decide if our loyalty to samsung is acctually worth it courtesy of android police Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Samsung's Octa-Core Exynos 5 processor (vs) Nvidia Tegra 4
Which processor is better and why? I'm thinking about getting the Samsung Galaxy Tab S in July. But I'm also hearing great things about the Asus Infinity Transformer TF701 with the Tegra 4. Better graphics? Faster? Appreciate all the input guys. Sent from my Tablet using Tapatalk
Tegra 4 has better graphics and probably better optimised games than the Mali on the Exynos. CPU wise, I think the CPU on the Exynos is slightly better.
xRevilatioNx said: Which processor is better and why? I'm thinking about getting the Samsung Galaxy Tab S in July. But I'm also hearing great things about the Asus Infinity Transformer TF701 with the Tegra 4. Better graphics? Faster? Appreciate all the input guys. Click to expand... Click to collapse Since Tegra's dead I'd say go with the one that's got a future... NVIDIA says the mainstream tablet and smartphone market is no longer their focus May 22nd 2014 by Quentyn Kennemer Once upon a time NVIDIA made plays to try and get into any smartphone or tablet they could. With stiff competition from Qualcomm and other chipset vendors, they’ve found that task to be very difficult. They credit their hard hurdles to MediaTek even more, because MediaTek’s value-positioned platform wins out for many mid-level or small OEMs. So NVIDIA’s calling it quits… somewhat. In a recent interview, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang talked about their struggles in the market so far and what they’re doing to adapt. For starters, he says they realize that competing for the “mainstream” smartphone and tablet market is no longer a desire for them. http://phandroid.com/2014/05/22/nvidia-ceo-interview/
Really? I heard their was a Tegra 5 ( The 192 CUDA-core Tegra K1) coming... http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/5/5278206/nvidia-debuts-tegra-k1-192-core-processor Nvidia's new processor is the latest in the Tegra family, succeeding last year's Tegra 4. This processor now puts them in the same camp as Intel. They claim it has more raw computing power than the Playstation 4. The Tegra K1 A15 variant will max out at 2.3GHz, while the Denver version will max out at 2.5GHz. The former is expected to hit devices in the first half of this year, while the latter will hit in the second half. the K1 is offered in two versions: the first is a 32-bit quad-core ARM Cortex A15 processor, similar to the Tegra 4 but more efficient.*According to an Nvidia whitepaper (PDF),*it can use half the power for the same CPU performance, or get 40 percent more performance for the same power. The second variant is a long-awaited custom 64-bit dual-core "Denver" ARM CPU, Huang spoke at great length to demonstrate the K1's graphical capabilities, showing it capably render Unreal Engine 4: Click to expand... Click to collapse So is it really dead? It will also power Google's Project Tango Tablet http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatsp...a-k1-powers-googles-project-tango-tablet-kit/ Sent from my Tablet using Tapatalk
system.img said: Tegra 4 has better graphics and probably better optimised games than the Mali on the Exynos. CPU wise, I think the CPU on the Exynos is slightly better. Click to expand... Click to collapse What's the reasoning behind that? There are more Mali GPU devices out there so won't it be a bigger focus for app developers? ---------- Post added at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 AM ---------- xRevilatioNx said: Really? I heard their was a Tegra 5 ( The 192 CUDA-core Tegra K1) coming... http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/5/5278206/nvidia-debuts-tegra-k1-192-core-processor So is it really dead? It will also power Google's Project Tango Tablet http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatsp...a-k1-powers-googles-project-tango-tablet-kit/ Sent from my Tablet using Tapatalk Click to expand... Click to collapse Yeah K1 is already out. It is in Xiaomi's new tablet.
I've now just read that chip is going to "revolutionize gaming" and will power 4K easily. The K1, along with the new Unreal Engine 4 will, Huang promised, bring "Next-Gen" "Photo-Real" gaming to tablets and mobile phones. "Unreal Engine is the most successful game engine of all time," According to Huang, theTegra K1 mobile CPU offers almost 3x the performance of Apple's A7 Chips. Click to expand... Click to collapse http://mashable.com/2014/01/06/nvidia-tegra-k1/ Now I'm afraid to even pull the trigger on the Asus or Samsung offerings. Not until I see where this chip lands, in future devices, and how they spec out. Sent from my Tablet using Tapatalk
xRevilatioNx said: So is it really dead? Click to expand... Click to collapse [Q] CNET - You delayed Tegra 4 for Tegra 4i. Did that turn out to be a mistake? Did you miss this whole design cycle? [A] Nvidia's CEO: I would say that Tegra 4i didn't pan out. We learned a lot in the process. But there are many things in our company that didn't pan out. That's OK. If you want to be an innovative company, you have to fail. Look, we built a great chip. LG's shipping it in the rest of the world outside the United States. It's a fantastic processor. But from a business strategy, it wasn't a success. So I learned a lot from it. It's OK. I'm glad I did it, and now we're moving on. [Q] CNET: Why did Tegra struggle in smartphones? [A:] Nvidia's CEO: Our focus as a company is still performance-oriented. The mainstream phone market commoditized so fast that really the...differentiators were price. And you can see the pressure that MediaTek is putting on Qualcomm, and you can see the pressure that MediaTek is putting on Marvell and Broadcom and all of these companies. Because guess what? They're the lowest-cost provider. I think that for mainstream phones, there's one strategy that really works right now, which is price. That's not our differentiator. That's not what we do for a living. Sounds dead to me; at least in mainstream tablets and smartphones. Who's going to use it anyway? Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek have better scale and produce equal or better chips so who needs Nvidia if they aren't price competitive? This really isn't a relevant conversation for the SGS5 forum anyway. The Tab S' are still using S-800 so it appears all of Samsung's tablets starting with the N10.1-14 are using the same h/w which means Exynos 5420 for the Tab S which doesn't have HMP enabled where the 5422 in the SGS5 does. The display area and sheer amount of pixels in Samsung's 2560x1600 tablets also make this an irrelevant comparison. There's like 10 people in the TF701 forum and it's been marked down everywhere to $299. Between Nvidia's and the TF701's position I'd say its day in the sun has passed. If it every had one.
Barry They aren't leaving the market. They just don't want to be mainstream. In order to do do they would have to be cost efficient as well. That's not what Nvidia is about. You left this tidbit out.. So NVIDIA’s calling it quits… somewhat . In a recent interview, NVIDIA*CEO Jen-Hsun Huang talked about their struggles in the market so far and what they’re doing to adapt. “Mainstream" could mean a lot of different things, but it sounds like he’s talking about every other chipset vendor’s need to hit every price point there is. He doesn’t want the Tegra brand to conform to something they don’t want it to be — their belief is that Tegra is a powerful line, and they don’t want to sacrifice that standard of power for the sake of creating more cost-efficient chipsets . Click to expand... Click to collapse Lastly, as another poster said, your seeing their latest chip by Nvidia rolling out in tablets. So as I said before, I may wait it out. See what other manufacturers this chipset pops up in, and how the rest of the tablet specs out. 4K capability is also a plus, along with be the best gaming tablet on the market, with that chipset. Barry. Thank you for your opinion. If you were a gamer like me. Who also enjoys multimedia consumption, at the highest quality. What would you do? Edit: Barry, disregard my quote. I see you have it up there and now realize your rationalization. So you don't expect it showing up (in any prominent fashion) , in the tablet market. Sent from my Tablet using Tapatalk