Components

Components Category

Jun 4, 2013

Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 400 is a quad core ARM Cortex A7 chip with a 4G LTE modem

Stefan Constantinescu

Qualcomm's "Snapdragon 400" brand is a bit confusing. Until now, we've known that the Snapdragon 400 featured two Qualcomm Krait cores. Today, that changes. The company has introduced a new chip with the

COMPONENTS

Jun 3, 2013

ARM’s new Cortex A12: Why this is a processor you should care about

Stefan Constantinescu

For all intents and purposes, every smartphone and tablet on the market uses ARM's technology in one way or another. ARM, unlike Intel, designs processors that they then let anyone use to make their

COMPONENTS

May 29, 2013

Samsung experiencing some growing pains, has trouble making deals with Qualcomm and Hynix

Stefan Constantinescu

Samsung is seen as this mighty component manufacturer who can make just about anything the electronics industry needs, but that image might soon become a bit tarnished. Two articles have appeared in The Korea Herald

COMPONENTS

May 29, 2013

Intel buys ST-Ericsson’s GPS unit, here’s why this is important

Stefan Constantinescu

Once upon a time, not too many years ago actually, the Franco-Italian company STMicroelectronics and the Swedish radio experts at Ericsson decided to join forces and create ST-Ericsson. The logic, back in early

COMPONENTS

May 28, 2013

LG licenses ARM’s most powerful CPUs and GPUs, but Samsung shouldn’t be scared

Stefan Constantinescu

ARM has just announced that LG has licensed their Cortex A50 series CPUs and “the next generation of ARM Mali” GPUs. For those who need a little bit or a refresher, ARM’

COMPONENTS

May 27, 2013

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 packing Pantech flagship benchmarked, it’s crazy stupid fast

Stefan Constantinescu

HTC's 2013 flagship phone, Samsung's 2013 flagship phone, even LG's 5.5 inch 1080p flagship, they all have one thing in common: They're powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600. It's

COMPONENTS

May 25, 2013

Being prepared, being flexible – the Android way

Steve Litchfield

What’s that you say? “A (yawn) Android Beat feature on (yawn) accessories (yawn)?” Actually yes, but bear with me, since there are serious points being made here about smartphone design. You see, as a

COMPONENTS

May 22, 2013

Qualcomm shows off 5.1 inch display with a 577 DPI, sadly it’s several years away

Stefan Constantinescu

Did you know that Qualcomm has been trying to get into the display business for years? The company first showed off their "Mirasol" displays in 2009 (see video below), but they've had limited success

COMPONENTS

May 21, 2013

Marvell takes on Qualcomm with their newest SoC, says they’ve signed up “tier-1” OEMS

Stefan Constantinescu

Marvell is a company you don't hear about too often these days. The company makes chips for various types of devices, including mobile phones and tablets. Today they've announced the PXA1088 LTE, which

COMPONENTS

May 20, 2013

LG to demo an “unbreakable” 5 inch OLED screen next week, no word about the resolution

Stefan Constantinescu

LG just published a press release saying that they're going to demo a 5 inch "unbreakable" OLED display at Display Week later this month. They didn't say anything about the screen's resolution

COMPONENTS

May 8, 2013

Irony: Samsung to exit the microSD card market, right after telling GS4 owners they should buy a microSD card

Stefan Constantinescu

The 16 GB version of Samsung's Galaxy S4 ships with roughly 8.5 GB of free space. The internet complained so much about this egregious fact that the company had to issue a statement

COMPONENTS

May 7, 2013

Dear Intel: Silvermont sounds great, but without the right cellular stack, you’re not going to go anywhere

Stefan Constantinescu

Intel has just announced "Silvermont", their new Atom CPU. Now I know what you're thinking, why am I talking about Intel's newest chip? Simple, the company is desperately trying to enter the mobile

CHINESE PLAYERS

May 6, 2013

Leak: Sony C3, the company’s first phone to be powered by a MediaTek chipset

Stefan Constantinescu

When it comes to chip companies, you can count the ones that matter on one hand. There's Apple, who technically doesn't make their own chips, but they do design them, and I don'

COMPONENTS

May 3, 2013

LG’s first quad core ARM Cortex A15 chip is done, project was led by an ex-TI employee

Stefan Constantinescu

How did Samsung get to where they are today? By going “vertical”. It’s an industry term that means instead of partnering with lots of companies to produce a product, Samsung decided

COMPONENTS

May 3, 2013

LG says they’re going to start focusing on making OLED panels for mobile devices

Stefan Constantinescu

Samsung isn't the only company that makes OLED displays, LG is also in the game. But unlike Samsung, LG hasn't really focused on making OLED screens for devices like smartphones and tablets. That'

COMPONENTS

May 1, 2013

Qualcomm shipping test hardware that enables wireless charging at distances up to 45 mm

Stefan Constantinescu

Wireless charging is great, but it's currently plagued by a standards war. There's the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), Qi, and the up and coming Power Matters Alliance (PMA). Qualcomm decided to go

ANDROID TABLETS

May 1, 2013

Benchmarks reveal that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 uses a Marvell chip

Stefan Constantinescu

When Samsung announced the Galaxy Tab 3 earlier this week, they said it was running a dual core 1.2 GHz chip. Most people, myself included, automatically assumed that said chip would be provided either

COMPONENTS

Apr 30, 2013

Samsung says their new mobile DRAM is just as fast as the DRAM in your computer

Stefan Constantinescu

Samsung just announced that they've begun producing 4 gigabit (512 MB) LPDDR3 mobile DRAM. Said RAM is built on a 20 nanometer process, it should deliver speeds of 2,133 megabits per second per