Normally we get so excited this time of year when all of the new smartphones start arriving on the scene – the HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5 are already selling and let us not forget the new Sony Xperia Z2 that nobody can find. We should soon see the new devices from LG, the G3 and G Pro 2…not to mention a bevy of new smartphones from Oppo, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and later this Fall the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will make its arrival. With all of these new devices you would think I’d be excited, but I am bored as h-e-l-l. This years’ top smartphones had nothing really new to show us, so each manufacturer recycled last years’ model as far as I am concerned – strictly evolutionary. I am not saying these are bad devices by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing really to sink your teeth into – no AH-HA moments.
Most of the boredom was because there is no new processors out right now – and don’t give me that Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 crap as it was only the 800 recycled. There were no 64-bit processors with 4GB of RAM, just the same old thing. Qualcomm did announce that their Snapdragon 610 and 615, two 64-bit processors will hit the market in time for the 2014 holiday season – maybe the Galaxy Note 4 might get one – but the real excitement will start early next year when the new Snapdragon 810 and 808 arrive.
While the 600 series will offer 64-bit, the 800 series will offer that and a whole lot more – hey, 64-bit is nice, but the additional features of the 800 series will really add some wonderful improvements for our smartphone experience and performance. The octa-core 810 is definitely the one to watch for – it will sport four Cortex-A57 cores for the hard-nosed, power tasks and four lower powered Cortex-A53 cores for handling the simpler tasks.
Other tasks and improvements for the 810 – Optimized ARMv8/64-bit with Adreno 430 GPU – Support for the new 4K displays – Faster and more efficient DDR4 RAM – Superior Camera features, like UbiFocus, ChromaFlash, and HDR video – Better video with UltraHD capture and playback at low power – Better voice quality with HD voice, Fluence, and noise cancellation – New ways to interact with voice activation, ultrasound pen, and gestures – Superior modem with 3x20MHz Carrier Aggregation with CAT 6 LTE at 300Mbps – Faster WiFi speeds – Better GPS – and advanced power management for better battery life.
The 808 also promises to be a much-improved six-core processor – implementing two A57s and four A53s. It will still support the current DDR3 RAM and feature an Adreno 418 GPU. This chip may be for mid-range devices and the 810 reserved for the flagship devices. We are not sure how it fits in with their 610/615 models – it is almost as if Qualcomm wanted to make sure that they had a 64-bit out before the end of the year, so they are rushing out the 600 series. We can see why Qualcomm may feel this way as there is a lot of pressure from MediaTek and NVIDIA with their 64-bit chips and Qualcomm does not want to lose any of their popularity…not to mention what Samsung is working on with their own Exynos chips.
One thing is for sure, 2015 should be a very exciting year for the mobile market – please let us know on our Google+ Page if you will be buying a new flagship this year or waiting for 2015 – or will you buy both years…as always, we love to hear from you.