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Thursday, August 5, 2021
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ZenFone 3 With Snapdragon 821 Chip Showcased by Asus

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Asus unveils new ZenFone 3 with Snapdragon chip.

The ZenFone 3 series looks amazing, especially the Deluxe with the Snapdragon 821 chip.

Asus showcased its newest mobile device, the ZenFone 3. The technical specs are absolutely glorious. The price tag is not for the weak of heart. The phone will be available for purchase in Taiwan initially, and will hit the US markets later in 2016.

The ZenFone 3 Deluxe is Asus’ new pride and joy, as it should be.

What Makes A ZenFone?

The phone will be the first model ever to have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 SoC. The chip has an amazing 2.4 GHz Kyro quad-core CPU, an enhanced graphics engine allowing for 4K video processing on proxy displays, and a modem that supports up to 600 Mbps download speed.

Accompanying the Snapdragon 821, the ZenFone 3 Deluxe boasts 6GB of DDR4 RAM.

Concerning storage capacity, Asus set up a comfortable 256 GB of UFS 2.0, but it also has an additional SIM slot which can host a microSD card with up to 128 GB of storage.

The additional SIM slot and the epic modem do also enable the ZenFone 3 to access privately managed cloud in ways smart device owners could only dream.

The display is a 5.7-inch screen. The Deluxe model comes with the Full-HD AMOLED display.

The front camera has an 8-megapixel range, while the back sensor is a 23-megapixel Sony model. Asus demonstrated the 4K video capture of the camera along with the flawless Snapdragon video processing on an external display.

The 3,000 mAh power source is medium-sized, and Asus stated heating should not be an issue.

Asus is running Zen UI on the ZenFone 3 Deluxe. The OS was built using the architecture of the Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

The Price Of Luxury

As previously stated, the price tag is not for the weak. In the United States, the Asus ZenFone 3 Deluxe is going to be ranging close to $780. In August in Taiwan, the price range will be the regional equivalent.  Pre-ordering in Taiwan will be available until the end of July.

In regards to the price tag, an initial overview may look it appear quite steep but the tech is brand new and cannot really be easily outmatched. This is one of the most outstanding Android phones to be available this year in terms of looks, design, and performance.

During the same presentation, Asus did mention upcoming development of the ZF3 Ultra, The ZenPad 3S 10 was also presented to the public, but the tablet did not sport tech anyway near as impressive as the ZenFone 3 Deluxe.

Image Courtesy of YouTube.

Qualcomm Acquired Wilocity for WiGig Development

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The mobile processor producer Qualcomm acquired Wilocity, WiGig chip maker. Mobile data transfer increased dramatically in the last years and it will only go up. Full HD videos are just one type of files whose impressive dimensions are managed by wireless connections. As the quality and inherent dimension of video clips grew, their transfer time between devices became longer and longer. Right now, the bottleneck seems to be taken care of. The established Wi-Fi standards reached their limits and will be soon replaced by WiGig. Intel already preached about the necessity to adopt WiGig in order to give up cables from PCs, a target set up to 2016.

Qualcomm acquired Wilocity to boost WiGig development

WiGig runs at 60 Ghz, which is a higher radio frequency. The main advantage is the vastly increased transfer speed. Data can be transferred at 7 Gbps with the new standard. The shortcoming, in comparison to today’s mainstream Wi-Fi standards, is that the transfer can be performed on shorter distances. It makes it ideal, for example, to stream 4K (3840 x 2160 pixels) videos from a smartphone to a TV in the same room without any cables and lag. But the applications of the new standard are numerous and many of them will be available in at least one year from now. Most of the flagship smartphones, like the HTC One M8, are equipped with a Qualcomm processing unit. Qualcomm intents to equip the first smartphones with WiGig chips in combination to Wi-fi modules in the second half of 2015.

Qualcomm acquired Wilocity for WiGig

Basically, the development and adoption of WiGig will produce fundamental changes. WiGig will allow the construction of a smooth framework for tomorrow’s Internet of Things. Numerous and various home equipment will be setup and running at full potential soon, now that WiGig development will be performed at a faster pace. The kitchen and the living room could become islands of extreme performance, as Tal Tamir, the chief executive of Wilocity, declared.

Billy Anders, group manager, operating systems, Microsoft, welcomed the news, as so did representatives from Dell and Cisco. Anders even bragged that “A little-known fact is that WiGig began during a meeting on Microsoft’s campus with several other companies, including Wilocity. It’s gratifying to see the rapid evolution of this technology, and this development indicates a rapid proliferation of WiGig.”, according to Marketwatch.com.

Qualcomm acquired Wilocity chipmaker after already possessing Atheros, a major Wi-Fi chipmaker for more than $3 billion since 2011. Qualcomm followed closely the start-up company Wilocity for a couple of years and invested in it prior to the acquisition.

Next Generation Kindle Fire HD may run on MediaTek Processor

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Kindle Fire HD

Amazon has always been a supplier for the low-cost tablet market, the Kindle Fire was a remarkably successful Android tablet at a time where the iPad was the only real winner in this space. Google brought out the Nexus 7 and we have seen some movement and adoption to Windows 8 tablet/hybrids.

When Amazon brought the Kindle Fire HD line-up, it felt like a move to the mid-range market. The specs were better and Amazon actually cared about what the device looked like. The Kindle Fire was heavy, ugly, but it worked and it brought Amazon’s incredible content ecosystem.

Now we are going to see the third generation of the Kindle Fire HD, possibly the Kindle Fire 2. This time, it will not be for low-end or mid-range consumers, the Kindle Fire HD units look set to tackle the top of the food chain head on, with incredible specs and performance to beat the iPad and other competitors.

Getting The Right Processor 

Amazon and Texas Instruments connected when the Kindle Fire was born, the two companies started working together and this may have been one of TI’s biggest successes in the mobile processing space, garnering a few million sales during its lifespan.

The Kindle Fire HD reclined the connection between Amazon and Texas Instruments, at the time TI were close to pulling out of the mobile processing market and we even heard rumours of Amazon looking to acquire TI for their processing knowledge, for future mobile projects, this never came to anything but a rumour.

With Texas Instruments out the equation, the next Kindle Fire HD tablets will need to be powered by a new processor and if rumours are to be believed, a fast one, capable of running at top speeds on Android. The obvious candidate would be the Snapdragon 800, the 2.2GHz quad-core beast can power past anything on the mobile market currently.

Qualcomm also owns the Snapdragon brand, being an American company, it may tie in with Amazon’s move to keep business at home and not in China, where Foxconn manufacturers their Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD units. We do not believe NVIDIA will be in the running, while the Tegra 4 processor is good for graphics and gaming, it does not beat the Snapdragon 800 on performance.

The last processor to come to mind is from MediaTek, a Taiwanese based chip manufacturer who have just created the first actual octo-core processor. This is built on big.LITTLE ARM technology and will run multitasking incredibly quick, something we believe Amazon will bring to the new line of Kindle Fire HDs.

MediaTek apparently got its first big buyer for the processor and all hands point to Amazon. The Kindle Fire HD would be the first tablet to have the octo-core processor inside and with 2GB of RAM we can see it zooming past the competition, currently the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Note 8.0.

Amazon is likely to release these new Kindle Fire HD tablets at the end of this year, alongside a cheap revamp to the original Kindle Fire.

Qualcomm debuts two with new Snapdragon processors

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Qualcomm has announced two new mobile processors that are designed for entry-level to mid-range devices. The 200 and 400 Snapdragon processors are the lower end variations to back up the high-end 600 and 800 processors announced at CES in January. Qualcomm has said we can expect to see the 200 and 400 powering budget smartphones by the end of the year, which means handset manufacturers, are already building devices around them.

As you have probably gathered, the 200 is the lesser of the two processers and will likely be built into entry-level mobile devices. Qualcomm says the 200 Snapdragon will balance performance with and power consumption that includes improved battery life. The 200 Snapdragon features a quad-core ARM Cortex A5 with up to 1.4GHz per core, an Adreno 203 GPU, and support for HD video playback, dual SIM cards, and up to 8 megapixels in the camera.
Qualcomm Snapdragon
The 400 is the more robust of the two new Qualcomm processors and will be finding its way to mid-range smartphones as well as mid-level tablet technology. Qualcomm is offering the 400 Snapdragon in two variations, dual-core (up to 1.7GHz per core) and quad-core (up to 1.4GHz per core). Power in the 400 is boosted when compared to its smaller sibling, and the Adreno 205 GPU supports modern cellular radios, offers 1080p HD video and capture, while the processor supports dual SIM cards and up to 13.5-megapixels for the camera.

Qualcomm has announced these two processors the same week that rival company Nvidia has announced its Tegra 4i, a chipset that is the company’s first native 4G LTE processor. Qualcomm has been winning the war of the processor giants of late, with new devices turning to its designs as opposed to Nvidia’s. LG’s new Optimus Pro and the recently launched HTC One both run Qualcomm 600 Snapdragon’s, while the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 is also rumoured to feature a Qualcomm chipset.