Daily News Courier

Samsung announces the Exynos 4 Quad, coming to the ‘next Galaxy’

Samsung couldn't contain the excitement, and just had to let us know the details about the chip powering the "Next Galaxy" that's coming on May 3.  It's called the Exynos 4 Quad, and it looks impressive. What, exactly, makes it so special?  It's built on a 32nm HKMG process, which is geek talk for high-performance with low power consumption. How good is the performance? Samsung claims it's twice as fast as it's predecessor, the 45nm Exynos 4 Dual, while consuming 20 percent less power. To further help power consumption, each core can be turned off when it's not needed, and the ones that are running can adjust their clock speed to match the demands of what you're doing.

Each core will be running at 1.4 HGHz, and are based on the Cortex A9 architecture. It has the other essentials as well, with support for 1080p/30fps recording, boasts an embedded image signal processor, and has support for HDMI 1.4 output. They didn't give any specifics as to what GPU they are pairing it with, though, but it's sure to be impressive. Excited yet? I know some of you are.

Source: Samsung

LG 4X HD is a Tegra 3-powered, quad-core Android phone

LG is the first Android phone maker to strike with a quad-core phone. And yes, that’s quad as in 4, twice the number of cores we’ve come to expect in in high-end Android smartphones (2). And what exactly does a quad-core phone get you these days?

Well, LG just let us know that it will soon debut the LG 4X HD. Following up on the success of the Optimus 2X, the Korean manufacturer has doubled-up on the cores using the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz. Speaking of which, NVIDIA sent us a message touting the 4-PLUS-1 system because, as we’ve already covered here on Androinica, Tegra 3 actually has five cores. The “Companion Core” is used only for low-power cases at a lower clock speed, enabling a more battery-efficient experience.

The Optimus 4X HD also has a 4.7 True HD IPS display that we’ve seen in the higher levels of phones LG has released recently. But unlike those devices, LG has finally stepped-up to the plate and brought Ice Cream Sandwich to the party. Yes, this phone will ship with Android 4.0 at launch.

As excited as we are to share this information, we can’t help but be the ‘Droid Debbie Downer who points out that LG also got us excited last year by releasing phones that looked incredible on paper. However, software problems in the G2X and a series of lengthy delays for firmware upgrades across its portfolio has shown that it’s about more than just how many cores can be crammed into a device. For now, we’ll maintain a measured excitement and hope that Mobile World Congress will make us throw caution to the wind or remain watchful from afar.

Here are the specs courtesy of LG, and some more info on NVIDIA Tegra 3′s 4-PLUS-1 system shared by NVIDIA.

• CPU: NVIDIA Tegra 3 1.5GHz quad-core processor
• Display: 4.7 inches True HD IPS (resolution 1280 X 720)
• Operating System: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• Memory: 16GB internal, 1GB LP DDR2 memory
• Camera: (rear) 8.0 megapixels (AF LED Flash support), (front), 1.3-megapixel
• Battery: 2,150 mAh
• Others: MHL, DLNA, etc.

 

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