LG Has Sold 10 Million LTE Smartphones Worldwide, Expects to Double Market Penetration in 2013

Subject: General Tech | March 3, 2013 - 05:37 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: smartphones, LTE, LG, Android

LG recently announced that it has sold 10 million smartphones equipped with LTE (Long Term Evolution) radios. That number is merely a small slice of the total 90.9 million LTE phones shipped in 2012 by all manufacturers, but it is an impressive number for the South Korean company.

LG attributes its record sales to is flagship Optimus G and other LTE smartphones being launched in the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. LG smartphones are still somewhat rare in the US, with Samsung and HTC dominating the Android options here. Still, it is nice to see additional competition, and hopefully LG will make itself more widely known in North America.

Through 2013, LG expects to double its market penetration with new LTE smartphones in additional emerging markets. Surprisingly, research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that global LTE smartphone shipments will grow Year over Year 202.5% to 275 million units. That is quite the jump from 2012’s 90.9 million LTE smartphones! According to LG, part of the company’s plan to contribute to that estimated shipment number is to introduce two new smartphones in the Optimus F series, and to roll-out the existing Optimus G to 50 additional countries.

The two new Optimus F smartphones feature LTE radios, IPS displays, large displays, and beefy batteries. The Optimus F7 has a 4.7” (312 PPI) IPS display, 1.5GHz dual core SoC, 2540 mAh battery, and 2GB of RAM. The Optimus F5, on the other hand, has a 4.3” (256 PPI) IPS display, 1.2GHz dual core SoC, 2150 mAh battery, and 1GB of RAM.

It remains to be seen whether or not LG can reach its goal, but I am hopeful that the company will at least be able to give the other Android smartphone makers a run for their money with new phone designs.

You can find the full press release over at Engadget.

Source: Engadget

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CES 2013: Intel Announces Atom Z2420 Processor for Smartphones

Subject: General Tech | January 8, 2013 - 11:28 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: SoC, smartphones, Intel, atom z2420, atom

Intel recently announced a new Atom-series Z2420 processor aimed at low-cost smartphones. The new System on a Chip will complement the existing Medfield and Clover Trail+ line – which are for higher-performance devices – by being aimed at the low cost phones in developing markets. The Atom Z2420 combines a CPU, L2 cache, GPU, memory controller, cryptography engine, image signal processor, and fixed function hardware used for video encoding and decoding. The chip is designed to be low power and is manufactured on Intel’s 32nm High-k metal gate process technology. According to Intel, the Co-PoP package measures 12 mm x 12 mm making it suitable for the intended smartphone form factor.

Specifications include a single core processor with 512KB of L2 cache running at 1.2 GHz that supports Intel’s HyperThreading, Burst, and low power C6 state technologies. With HyperThreading, it can utilize two threads and with Burst, the processor can dynamically scale frequency to balance power usage and CPU load. The Intel GMA GPU uses PowerVR SGX540 graphics cores clocked at 400 Mhz. It is compatible with OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1. The GPU is rated at 40 MTS peak polygons and a 2000 MPPS peak fill rate. Additionally, the SoC features hardware that can hardware encode/decode 30 FPS 1080p video in H.264, H.263, and MP4. Further, the hardware can hardware accelerate decoding of VC1, WMV9 but it cannot hardware accelerate encoding of those two additional formats. The Atom Z2420 SoC supports dual channel LPDDR2 memory clocked at 400 MHz. The Image Signal Processor (ISP) can support a 1.2MP and 8MP front and rear cameras. The SoC can support 15 FPS burst capture, video image stabilization, and HD video recording.

Intel has positioned the Atom Z2420 SoC at the Android operating system, and has even built a reference smartphone with the new processor. Acer, Lava, and Safaricom are among the companies lined up to produce future budget smartphones with the new SoC. Unfortunately, Atom Z2420-powered smartphones are not headed to the United States. Intel is sticking to developing markets suchs as India, Latin America, and Africa. Here's hoping next year Intel (finally) feels its mobile (smartphone) hardware is ready to compete with the ARM giants and that it pushes for Atom-powered smartphones in additional countries (including the US). Until then, you can find more information on the current generation Z2420 in the press release (PDF).

PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.

Follow all of our coverage of the show at http://pcper.com/ces!

Source: Intel

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Looking for upcoming mobile PC and smartphone release information?

Subject: General Tech | August 29, 2012 - 06:09 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: smartphones, Samsung, release

The Inquirer is the place to be if you are desperate for news from the IFA Technology Conference in Berlin. It seems that most of the major smart phone manufactures are there showing off their upcoming products. You have Samsung showing off the Windows 8 powered Ativ S, the Galaxy Note 2 smart phone, a tablet and a pair of hybrid systems while Sony is showing off three new Xperia phones and an Xperia Tablet.

From ASUS comes a quartet of devices, the dual screen Taichi, Transformer Book, Zenbook U500VZ and Zenbook Prime UX21A Touch. The Transformer Book will look similar to the existing Pad models on the exterior but the interior will be very different as it will be an Intel processor running Win8. All of the above will sport SSDs and the Prime will sport an IPS display, the details on the displays of the other devices were not specified.

You can also check out a review contrasting Apple's new Ipad against the Tegra powered Asus Transformer Pad Infinity which is due for release in Europe in the near future. As this conference is taking place in Europe, many of the phones and other devices on display may never make it to North American markets though you can bet similar devices will.

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"SAMSUNG HAS LAUNCHED its first Windows Phone 8 device, the Ativ S, as well as a tablet and two laptop/tablet hybrids that will run Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

The launch comes a week ahead of Nokia's expected launch of its first handset running the next generation Microsoft Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

Source: The Inquirer

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AMD will be snubbing the smartphone

Subject: General Tech | August 9, 2011 - 03:30 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: amd, tablet, smartphones, trinity

In a revent interview, AMD's SVP and GM, Rick Bergman restated that AMD has no current plans in the works to jump to the handheld market. They will continue to focus on their current product lines and that the only ultramobile development currently underway is for tablets. That could help them get a leg up on Intel's Atom, as Intel is definitely making a move for the hand held market. Focusing on tablets gives them a less strict power limitation and may just give them a boost as they push to the 28nm process with only one ultra low power Trinity APU product line to design. Check out The Inquirer for more.

"CHIP DESIGNER AMD has ruled out making a move in the smartphone market, preferring to concentrate on tablets.

Rick Bergman, SVP and GM of AMD's products group told a conference that the chip designer has no plans to get into the smartphone market, saying that its expertise in graphics does not suit that market. Instead it will be up to AMD's Z-series embedded chip to push X86 into the tablet market."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

Source: The Inquirer

HTC Thunderbolt Review: 4G LTE Storms The Airwaves

Author: Matt Smith

Date: May 5, 2011

Subject: Mobile

Manufacturer: HTC

Tagged: thunderbolt, smartphones, htc, Android, 4g lte

Introduction, Design and Ergonomics

Watching today’s smartphone market brings back memories. Right now the transition from single-core to dual-core products is being made, as is a transition from older 3G networks to the latest 4G technology. I’m reminded of the excitement of the first dual-core x86 processors, as well as the rabid arguments surrounding them.

Many dual-core phone are still “coming soon”, however, which means that single-core flagships like the HTC Thunderbolt are still able to impress. This 4.3” smartphone is everything you’d expect a premier high-end Android handset to be. As I’ll explain, that has its positive and negatives, but the specifications look great on paper.

PC Perspective