I wrote about Snapdragons way back in 2006. That is 5 years ago. There was the vision. Today it is the reality. Last week I became a proud of the
Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform by Qualcomm. It is a mobile phone, or rather a demonstration of power, of what a mobile phone can be today. Sparing some deep technical details, the features that have impressed me most are:
- Dual standard radio, meaning it works on all GSM network variants: GSM, UMTS, HSPA, CDMA, EvDO
- Dual SIM capability (not many high end smartphone have that). A feature very welcome by frequent roamers - one SIM card for your main voice number, the other for local (prepaid) Internet access, to avoid absurd data charges abroad.
- It effortlessly plays Flash video embedded into Web pages. Something Steve Jobs said could not be done.
- The main camera is 12Megapixels. Point and shots are dead.
- HDMI out. This is my first phone I can connect directly to a HDTV and play HD video. The cable is bigger than the phone itself. The next step will be Wireless HDMI. Shielded copper will not do.
- Plus there is a cornucopia of sensors. An Ambient light sensor, an accelerometer, a 3-axis gyroscope, a compass, a proximity sensor, a thermometer and a pressure sensor. The entire package seems equipped with instruments like a spaceship. Wonder what kinds of applications will emerge to use all this hardware?
The MDP runs Android. At the moment the 2.2.1 version, but the software is an ongoing work in progress. It all looks very promising now and is a proof we will soon see launches of many OEM phones based on the MDP reference designs.
I wrote about Snapdragons way back in 2006. That is 5 years ago. There was the vision. Today it is the reality. Last week I became a proud of the Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform by Qualcomm. It is a mobile phone, or rather a demonstration of power, of what a mobile phone can be today. Sparing some deep technical details, the features that have impressed me most are:
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