The Mobile World Congress 2011 Thread

[Arun]

I'm leaving for MWC11 in less than 24 hours, so I just thought I'd create a new thread for all the small tidbits that are likely to be announced but won't need a thread to themselves. Feel free also to suggest anything I should try to check out at the show (keep in mind some companies mostly show things behind closed doors and for simplicity's sake I didn't register for a press pass).

Hopefully I'll post small updates here or more likely on Twitter (@ArunDemeure) every evening, but no promises. I'll also try writing a quick article once I'm back. Anyhow this is mostly supposed to be a thread about what's announced the show, so let's get to that!

 

[Ailuros]

Well one of my question marks just got an answer:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/12/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-and-10-1-inch-galaxy-tab-ii-confirmed-for-mw/

 

[MarkoIt]

I would like to see Samsung using their Pixel Sense technology with the 3D glasses-free display. That would allow for some cool 3D user interface and gesture control.
That's the next step i guess.
It's interesting how each year the MWC gets bigger and more important for the landscape of the consumer electronics industry. For the first time, in 2011 smartphone sales were over personal computer sales!

 

[Lazy8s]

I personally couldn't see the Tegra 2 thing happening, but I know to never say never.

Coverage of mobile graphics from these shows is usually so thin, so this is good knowing that at least one clued-in person will be attending MWC.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4166/mwc-2011-lg-optimus-3d-and-optimus-pad-announced

About the LG lineup:

Optimus 2X: Tegra 2
Optimus Pad: Tegra 2 (probably the higher-clocked "3D" version since it mentions 3D output capabilities through HDMI)
Optimus 3D: OMAP4


OMAP4 in Optimus 3D was quite a surprise, to say the least. With nVidia doing all that fuss about the Tegra 2 3D and Optimus 2X having T2, I expected LG to continue the trend to the 3D version.

With Optimus Pad having Tegra 2 3D and Optimus 3D having OMAP4, I wonder if OMAP4 consumes less power than T2-3D.

 

[Ailuros]

Galaxy Tab 10.1 with Tegra2 after all:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/13/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-official-tegra-2-honeycomb-dual-camer/

 

[Lazy8s]

Funny stuff. Industry never fails to surprise... well, at least Samsung's attention deficit disorder when it comes to processor platforms.

What isn't surprising is OMAP4 starting to win some of the slots. It's the higher end alternative for both performance and price right now, and most indications suggest Tegra 2 requires quite a bit of battery.

 

[Wishmaster]

New snapdragon SoC with new CPU codenamed Krait

Sounds impressive and should be available 'soon', wonder what Arun learns about this one when his in place and can talk with guys from Qualcomm
http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releas...t-generation-snapdragon-mobile-chipset-family

Can you imagine, quad-core CPU with 2.5Ghz each, thats more than my PC has(I know that it means nothing but still sounds very impressive).
Second thing, good to see that they're differentiating their chips - same impressive CPU, different GPU's but all should offer similar multimedia performance, so manufacturers can choose what suits them perfectly.

 

[Ailuros]

Sounds impressive and should be available 'soon', wonder what Arun learns about this one when his in place and can talk with guys from Qualcomm
http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releas...t-generation-snapdragon-mobile-chipset-family

Can you imagine, quad-core CPU with 2.5Ghz each, thats more than my PC has(I know that it means nothing but still sounds very impressive).
Second thing, good to see that they're differentiating their chips - same impressive CPU, different GPU's but all should offer similar multimedia performance, so manufacturers can choose what suits them perfectly.

I find it way more interesting in that PR that Qualcolmm is also going to multi-core GPUs; along Vivante, ARM and IMG that makes already 4 with MPs on their road-map.

IMG at MWC11':

http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=609

 

[Lazy8s]

Graphics performance sounds a little iffy, but the last Adrenos were fairly competitive and bode well for this new generation.

The GPU numbering system seems somewhat odd, though: the single and quad CPU variants use an Adreno 3xx series GPU while the dual variant uses the Adreno 225...

 

[Ailuros]

Graphics performance sounds a little iffy, but the last Adrenos were fairly competitive and bode well for this new generation.

The GPU numbering system seems somewhat odd, though: the single and quad CPU variants use an Adreno 3xx series GPU while the dual variant uses the Adreno 225...

LOL good catch. I didn't notice that one.

***edit: on 2nd thought considering that the dual core 225 SoC is slated for Q2 2011 availability it explains a lot.

 

[Wishmaster]

Graphics performance sounds a little iffy, but the last Adrenos were fairly competitive and bode well for this new generation.

The GPU numbering system seems somewhat odd, though: the single and quad CPU variants use an Adreno 3xx series GPU while the dual variant uses the Adreno 225...

They sound possible, considering that adreno 205 is really 2x faster than 200 which is what they were saying, probably adreno 220 is 4x faster than 200 so it is possible that 225 is going to be 2x faster than 220.
Adreno 305 is probably single core variant of 320 and 225 is shrinked version of 220(which is yet to prove itself) with doubled clock.

I'm more interested in multimedia engine(supported codecs and bitrates) and how powerful Krait really is. Is it more of a brute force due to high clock or did they massively improve their scorpion architecture...

 

[Tap In]

WP7 shows off multitasking including 3rd party

Kinect integration

Also announced:

IE9 will be available for Windows Phone 7 in the second half of 2011
•
Copy and paste functionality via first major update, coming in the next month
•
Twitter integration directly into the People Hub in 2011
•
Support for Office documents in the cloud in 2011
•
Dramatically enhanced Web browser experience based on IE9 in 2011
•
the phone will be available soon on U.S. networks such as Verizon and Sprint
A new wave of multitasking applications in 2011


ie9 on WP7 with hardware acceleration

 

[Arun]

Sounds impressive and should be available 'soon', wonder what Arun learns about this one when his in place and can talk with guys from Qualcomm

Here's hoping I can get some interesting info, yes - unfortunately the Qualcomm booth today didn't seem to have any part dedicated on it. Their press conf is tomorrow at 11.30am so we'll see (hopefully I won't be late because of the ST-Ericsson event happening outside the venue from 9am to 11am)

Also sorry for the lack of updates on my side, I'll try as much as possible to post more tomorrow evening

 

[Lazy8s]

Best. Show. Ever.

All the SoC makers came out swinging (well, technically Apple sat back and smiled with their well-appointed 543MP2+A9 dual core launching soon enough in end product), and display technologies are really kicking into gear in performance and diversity.

I learned that the escalation of the competition has forced the lumbering giants of semiconductors and especially handset design to tighten their delivery schedule sooner than I expected and actually get these technologies to market in a more reasonable timeframe. Orion surprised me in that regard; Marvell and Freescale's Vivante solutions might surprise me, too. The launch targets of OMAP5 and ST-Ericsson's Rogue are looking good.

GLBenchmark 3.0 is looking fun. Hopefully Rogue doesn't reach refresh rate limits on it, though.

 

[rbaker]

...tighten their delivery schedule sooner than I expected and actually get these technologies to market in a more reasonable timeframe. Orion surprised me in that regard..

Could the accelerated schedules explain why the Egypt 2.0 numbers for Orion are 25% lower than Hummingbird?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Could the accelerated schedules explain why the Egypt 2.0 numbers for Orion are 25% lower than Hummingbird?

Different GPU. Hummingbird has a PowerVR SGX540 @ 200MHz. Orion has an ARM Mali 400MP4. We don't know if the new GPU is actually weaker or if it's a driver issue.

 

[Ailuros]

Different GPU. Hummingbird has a PowerVR SGX540 @ 200MHz. Orion has an ARM Mali 400MP4. We don't know if the new GPU is actually weaker or if it's a driver issue.

Mali400MP4 has 4 fragment cores and only one VS unit, while SGX540 has 4 USC ALUs for pixel and vertex shading.