Despite Samsung reporting just a few weeks ago that a MID will come ’sooner or later’ and there only being 11 days left in June, Aving are reporting that Qualcomm are saying (ahem, not exactly first hand news this is it!) that Samsung will release a MID in June 2008. The quoted specs included a 1Ghz ARMv7 which is going to be very fast indeed. ARMv7 is the ARM-licensed architecture used inside the Cortex-based processors which are said to be four times as fast as current ARM architectures for the same clockrate. If that’s right, this Samsung device could have something like 10 times the processing power of the Nokia N810. Of course, that’s just based on marketing talk but even if it’s half as good, this baby could really fly! The Qualcomm platform that will be used is known as ‘Snapgragon’ which includes the ARMv7 core, a 600Mhz DSP for A/V operations, support for high-end photography and a universal modem that will keep most anyone in the world confident that it’s going to work with their carrier. Here are some of the key features of Snapdragon:
- Universal Modem supporting all 2G and 3G mobile broadband standards (CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, Revisions B, A and 0; HSPA, WCDMA, GSM / GPRS / EDGE)
- High definition video decode (720P)
- 3D graphics with up to 22M triangles/sec and 133M 3D pixels/sec
- High resolution XGA display support
- 12-megapixel camera [support for.. - Ed]
- Support for multiple video codecs
- Audio codecs: (AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711 , AAC stereo encode)
- Support for Broadcast TV (MediaFLOTM , DVB-H and ISDB-T)
No images of the device were shown in the Aving article which might indicate that the launch is yet to happen at WITS 2008. The images below show demonstrators presented by Qualcomm at CES in Jan. Maybe we’ll see one of them with the Samsung brand on it but it’s more likely that Samsung have kept their own ID under wraps.
Qualcomm ‘Anchorage’ demonstrators shown at CES. (Geek.com)
This image of the ‘Anchorage’ device from MSMobiles news
The big question is, what OS will we see on this device? Windows Mobile 6.1 is currently the most likely option but if you’re breaking into a new product category that sits close to your existing products you might want to be differentiating it somehow. Could this be the first Android device?
Qualcomm have already said that up to 15 Snapdragon-based devices would be released in 2008 and Samsung, along with HTC, have long been known as customers so maybe we really can expect something in the next week. Will ARM beat Intel to the MID market?
WorldITShow website. News from Aving.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Putting windows mobile on this device does not seem like a good move.
If they just use Ubuntu mobile!
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June 19th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
right, ubuntu mobile would have been the best choice
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June 19th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Unfortunately, UME is build for X86 device only.
I think the only real choice is WM6.1 unless Android is launching soon.
Steve.
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June 19th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
No WIFI?
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June 19th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
not had good experiences with wm. would this be able to play divx movies?
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June 20th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Software is available on WM to play Divx. This would have plenty of power to cope with it too.
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June 20th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Please put this in a 3-3.2″ smartphone. Pretty please?
The Windows Mobile platform is very capable, it just isn’t very pretty. Put Opera 9.5, CorePlayer and TomTom on it and you’ll have one heck of a browser, PMP, GPS navigation and productivity (email, word, excel, PIM) device.
And yes, WM can play DivX movies if you have the right software. My ancient Dell Axim X30H was used quite extensively to watch VGA resolution DivX videos without transcoding.
You can recompile Ubuntu Mobile for ARM devices altough some bits of the code may have been tweaked for x86. I know that Nokia have recompiled Ubuntu for their ARM-based N8×0 Internet Tablets.
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June 20th, 2008 at 3:22 am
i hope its a 5 inch screen , with slide out keyboard , like the 0q0 only thinner and excellent battery life with inbuilt gps and free cookie .
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June 20th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I have a Windows Mobile device at the moment, and I am desperate to upgrade to a proper computer with a proper operating system (in a pocket). WM5 is slow, clunky, buggy and just can’t reproduce the functionality of a grown-up computer. I know there are apps that in theory provide the same functionality as with full Windows - you can get an office suite, for example - but in practice the compatibility and functionality isn’t 100%.
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June 20th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I actually think that WM6.1 on a fast device with a bigger screen could be very interesting. I would be quite happy to try and retrofit the required missing items (OPera mobile, Coreplayer etc) and fumble through a crappy UI but I know most consumers wouldn’t be impressed with that.
Even Symbian Series 60 could be quite interesting with a touch-UI, a big speed-up and a better browser. SOme of the N-Gage games would be really great fun on a bigger screen too!
Steve.
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