The Chips Inside Android

I never thought we would be getting into discussions about CPUs on the mobile devices like the way we did in the PC realm. AMD versus Intel. Ghz versus Ghz or quad-core versus octo-core. But I decided to dig a bit into the CPUs that run the Android devices on the market.

Why would I hope up this can of worms? Because I'm interested in the G2, T-Mobile's next generation Android device and the first to support the upgraded HSPA+ network.

So this will be brief.

Initially, all the Android sites I visited all agreed that the G2 would use the same 1Ghz Snapdragon chip in many of the Android devices beginning with the Nexus One. Decent chip but can't do graphics as well as certain devices from a fruity company. Furthermore, it seems to strain in trying to do 720p, especially 720p video capture.

But recently, Samsung's Galaxy S began making waves in the mobile market. It uses Samsung's own Hummingbird also running at 1Ghz. But we know by now, 1Ghz in one chip isn't the same as 1Ghz in another chip. The Hummingbird is hands down a faster chip, more capable in handling HD content.

And tonight, just as I've resigned to the fact that the G2 is going to be powered by a decently aged system, I learned that T-Mobile's G2 will be powered by Qualcomm's newer MSM7230, running between 800Mhz to 1Ghz, powered by a new GPU with 4X the horse power as the Snapdragon.

However, it is only capable to keep up with the Hummingbird. But am I going to complain? No way. This is fantastic news. G2 is once again back in contention as a candidate for my next mobile device.

So wrapping up. Snapdragon good. MSM7230 is much better and just as good as the Hummingbird. Here's a video showing off the capability of MSM7230 and what to expect from the G2.



More at Android And Me.

Note: NVidia may be joining the Android party with Tegra 2 as well as duo-core chips from Qualcomm. It just gets better and better.