Qualcomm
Qualcomm this morning is taking the wraps off of a new smartphone SoC for the mid-range market, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. The second of Qualcomm’s down-market ‘S’ tier Snapdragon 7 parts, the 7s series is functionally the entry-level tier for the Snapdragon 7 family – and really, most Qualcomm-powered handsets in North America. With three tiers of Snapdragon 7 chips, the 7s can easily be lost in the noise that comes with more powerful chips. But the latest iteration of the 7s is a bit more interesting than usual, as rather than reusing an existing die, Qualcomm has seemingly minted a whole new die for this part. As a result, the company has upgraded the 7s family to use Arm’s current Armv9 CPU cores...
Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
If you've followed our reviews for the past year, it was probably evident that the Galaxy S6 was one of the best phones launched last year. With one of...
123 by Joshua Ho on 2/21/2016Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 625, 425 & 435 Mid- and Low-End SoCs
Today Qualcomm announced three new SoCs in the mid and low-end Snapdragon lineup. At the lowest end we find the Snapdragon 425 offering a very frugal CPU configuration consisting...
22 by Andrei Frumusanu on 2/11/2016VAIO to Start Selling Smartphones in Japan
VAIO, the former PC division of Sony and now an independent supplier of PCs, this week announced plans to introduce its first smartphone in Japan this spring. The company...
16 by Anton Shilov on 2/5/2016Hands On With the Huawei Honor 5X
We’ve reviewed Huawei Honor devices before, but by and large they were designed to target China and similar markets. There were also a number of growing pains as seen...
14 by Joshua Ho on 1/6/2016US ITC Finds NVIDIA Guilty of Infringing Three Samsung Patents
An administrative law judge from the U.S. International Trade Commission on Tuesday found that NVIDIA Corp. infringed several patents of Samsung Electronics. The judge ruled that NVIDIA’s graphics processing...
35 by Anton Shilov on 12/23/2015Qualcomm renames Snapdragon 618,620 to 650,652
Earlier in the year we were able to cover Qualcomm's announcement of the Snapdragon 618 and 620 mid-range SoCs. We haven't heard much about the SoCs since the original...
21 by Andrei Frumusanu on 12/17/2015The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Performance Preview: Meet Kryo
I don’t think there’s any way to sugarcoat this, but 2015 has not been a particularly great year for Qualcomm in the high-end SoC business. The company remains a...
146 by Ryan Smith & Andrei Frumusanu on 12/10/2015Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Experience: HMP Kryo and Demos
While the Snapdragon 820 has had a number of announcements about various aspects of the SoC, some details have been mostly left to the imagination. Today, Qualcomm held an...
26 by Joshua Ho on 11/10/2015Hands On With the HTC One A9
Today, HTC is launching their flagship smartphone for the holiday season. For those that have followed HTC, this launch shouldn’t be too much of a surprise given that the...
61 by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on 10/20/2015Qualcomm Announces Quick Charge 3.0: Intelligent Voltage Control
One of the other features that was announced for multiple Snapdragon SoCs at the 3G/LTE Summit in Hong Kong was Quick Charge 3.0, which will be supported on the...
27 by Joshua Ho on 9/15/2015Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 820 Modem Configuration: X12 LTE
At Qualcomm’s 3G/LTE Summit in Hong Kong, Qualcomm released some details about the modem that will be integrated into their Snapdragon 820 SoC. On the LTE side, Qualcomm is...
14 by Joshua Ho on 9/15/2015Qualcomm Announces Kryo CPU Details: Quad Core 2.2 GHz, 14nm FinFET
Today, Qualcomm announced a number of details in the Snapdragon 820, specifically about their Kryo CPU. Given that the Snapdragon 810 was a somewhat standard 4x Cortex-A57/4x Cortex-A53, it...
60 by Joshua Ho on 9/2/2015Qualcomm Details Hexagon 680 DSP in Snapdragon 820: Accelerated Imaging
Although we tend not to focus too much on the tertiary aspects of a SoC, they are often important to enabling many aspects of the user experience. DSPs are...
41 by Joshua Ho on 8/24/2015Understanding Qualcomm's ImproveTouch
Although the Xperia Z4 Tablet was announced as far back as MWC, it wasn’t until recently that the enhanced noise rejection of the touchscreen was really shown off. At...
13 by Joshua Ho on 8/18/2015Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 616, 412, and 212
Today, Qualcomm launched a set of new SoCs, namely the Snapdragon 616, 412, and 212. These are updates to the Snapdragon 615, 410, and 210 respectively. If you were to...
22 by Joshua Ho on 8/10/2015The LG G4 Review
The LG G3 was probably the Android phone that was closest to getting everything right last year, but it ultimately fell short of being the “best Android phone”. The...
85 by Joshua Ho on 7/30/2015Motorola Announces the Moto X Play
In a somewhat interesting twist, Motorola has announced a new version of the Moto X designed to slot in between the Moto X’s traditional flagship position and the Moto...
46 by Joshua Ho on 7/28/2015Motorola Announces the Moto X Style
Today, Motorola also announced their new flagship phone, the Moto X Style. Following the trend of larger screen sizes, it seems Motorola has taken this trend to its logical...
46 by Joshua Ho on 7/28/2015Motorola Announces the New Moto G
Today, Motorola announced the successor to their Moto G, which has been their most successful phone in recent memory. It’s still called the Moto G, but this is the...
52 by Joshua Ho on 7/28/2015OnePlus Announces the OnePlus 2: 389 USD High-End Flagship
OnePlus showed up on the scene last year with a “flagship killer”, the OnePlus One. For those that are unfamiliar with this device, it brought a Snapdragon 801 SoC...
90 by Joshua Ho on 7/27/2015