CyanogenMod shelves ICS/Jelly Bean support for Snapdragon S1 devices

The CyanogenMod team has announced that it won't be able to officially support phones powered by first-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon chips in version 9 or 10 of its popular custom firmware. The CM team broke the news on Google+, where it revealed that a combination of hardware limitations and concerns for user experience quality were behind the decision. This means many older Android handsets that shipped in Q1 and Q2 2010, such as HTC's Nexus One, Desire and EVO 4G, will not see official CyanogenMod 9 or 10 builds, and will have to look elsewhere for their ICS or Jelly Bean fix. All affected devices will continue to be supported on the Gingerbread-based CyanogenMod 7.x branch, the team says.

Explaining the technical issues behind the decision, CM highlighted the good old Nexus One. In order to run CM9 or 10, the phone's internal memory would need to be repartitioned, and even then the lack of certain proprietary code for the phone's SoC (system-on-a-chip) would've made for a janky user experience -- "the pieces just aren't there." The team notes that it wouldn't be impossible to get ICS or Jelly Bean running on this hardware, but that doing so could break third-party application support because of the hackiness of the code involved.

If you still want Android 4.x on your Nexus One, you'll certainly be able to do so on other custom ROMs (and unofficial CM builds), though you'll sacrifice stability in order to do this. It's unfortunate, but when you remember that most of these phones shipped more than two years ago on Android 2.1 or earlier, it's not all that surprising.

We've got the full list of affected devices after the break.

Source: +CyanogenMod

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Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro Quad-Core Developer Tablet Now Available

The popular distributor of Qualcomm development kits named BSQUARE has announced the availability of Snapdragon S4 Pro mobile development platform for a price of $1,299. Specs below:

Benchmarks:

Official Press Release:

Bsquare Announces Availability of the Quad-Core Snapdragon S4 Pro Mobile Development Platform for TabletsSnapdragon S4 APQ8064-based Developer Tool Gives Access to Android 4.0 platform for application and game developmentBellevue, WA – July 24, 2012 – BSQUARE Corporation (NASDAQ: BSQR), a leading enabler of smart, connected devices, today announced general availability of the next generation Mobile Development Platform (MDP/T) for Android tablets based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon™ S4 Pro Processor. The MDP/T provides application developers and device manufacturers with access to a high-performance Android 4.0 platform for developing, testing, optimizing and showcasing applications and games.
The MDP/T is the first Snapdragon based Mobile Development Platform in a tablet form factor available to developers, middleware vendors and others. It's also the first to feature the Snapdragon™ S4 Pro APQ8064 processor by Qualcomm with asynchronous Quad CPU cores, running up to 1.5 GHz each. The tablet development platform offers powerful built-in graphics enabled by the Adreno™ 320 GPU, which is over two times faster than the 225 GPU on previous Snapdragon-based MDPs. Power management and multimedia efficiencies are also increased over previous MDPs due to the 2GB LPDDR2 RAM and 32GB Storage. The device also features a higher resolution 10.1 WXGA Multi-touch Display.
"Access to the APQ8064 processor with its asynchronous Quad CPU cores gives Android application developers a powerful platform to develop their differentiated applications for rapid market release," said John Traynor, vice president of products, Bsquare. "This access, combined with best-in-class engineering support and testing solutions from Bsquare, provides a major benefit to application and game developers developing for a wide range of pre-commercial devices."
"It's exciting for us to make available the first tablet form factor Snapdragon -based development platform with Bsquare," said Tia Cassett, senior director of business development, Qualcomm. "The combination of a powerful developer device in the Snapdragon APQ8064-based MDP/T and industry-leading services from Bsquare means faster time-to-market for Android developers."
The Mobile Development Platform (MDP/T) based on Snapdragon S4 Pro Processor is available now at www.bsquare.com/qualcomm. Bsquare will support developers and manufacturers using the APQ8064-based MDP/T with engineering services and technical support. Customers of the tablet device also have 24/7 access to the Bsquare Knowledge Base, technical documentation, complimentary tools and Snapdragon MDP software updates. Users of the APQ8064-based MDP/T can also benefit from the industry-leading TestQuest automated testing technology from Bsquare, which supports testing of Android software and hardware.

HTC One X: Snapdragon S4 vs Tegra 3 in performance, GPU, battery life, and web browsing

Does the processor found inside your mobile device really matter? The average consumer doesn’t care what CPU is featured inside their smartphone, but it’s always a popular topic among the hardcore crowd. Today’s hottest mobile chips are NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4, so we put them through a round of benchmarks and experiences to see which came out on top. The results might surprise you, so read on for the full details.

Finally, we have both the Snapdragon S4 and Tegra 3 version of the HTC One X. We wanted to keep things simple, so we only used three devices. I decided to go with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus as the third device since it is currently Google’s flagship Android device.

Note: Our international HTC One X just received the 1.29 firmware update as we were working on this post, so we will update the benchmarks scores with new results if we find anything differs.

For this round of testing, we used most of the popular Android benchmarks that are freely available in the Google Play Store. We decided to exclude Vellamo Mobile Web Benchmark since it is developed by Qualcomm. Linpack was also excluded because it’s a benchmark intended for use on supercomputers and it doesn’t produce consistent results on Android. Finally, for all browser benchmarks we used the latest Chrome Beta, since each device has a different default browser.

Winner – Tegra 3: Not many apps are optimized for quad-core, but several benchmarks are. Tegra 3 manages to score a healthy lead in Antutu, CFBench, and Smartbench. In Quadrant we see Snapdragon S4 eke out a close victory, but the results are within the margin of error.

Winner – Tegra 3: Both GPUs appear to be pretty evenly matched, but we give the slight advantage to Tegra 3. In Antutu and GLBenchmark Pro Offscreen, we see Tegra 3 and Snapdragon S4 are neck-and-neck. Antutu does not appear to be a very intensive graphics benchmark and the Pro test is the less demanding test on GLBenchmark. On the most demanding graphics test, GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen, Tegra 3 holds a 10fps advantage over Snapdragon S4.

Winner – Tegra 3: On browsing benchmarks, Tegra 3 wins every round. It’s interesting to note that the aging Galaxy Nexus wins both the Sunspider and Moonbat tests which are single-threaded. This could be from code optimizations that are targeted at the Galaxy Nexus. We can see the four CPU cores in Tegra 3 really shine in the Moonbat test with web workers set to 4 threads. This should indicate that Tegra 3 should perform faster on Chrome when multiple tabs are open.

Winner – Too close to call: Battery benchmarks are a tricky thing. There are not many standard tests out there (that we could get to complete on both devices), so we used MX Player and put a video (recorded by a One X) on an endless loop. Both devices lasted just over 6 hours, with the Tegra 3 version lasting an additional 9 minutes.

I found it interesting that the Tegra 3 version saw the battery warnings at 14 percent and 9 percent just a minute earlier than Snapdragon S4. However, when it came to the last 3 percent warning, Snapdragon appeared first and then died first. It looks like Tegra 3 has some extra battery management tricks that turn down the 5th low-power core when the battery is on its final charge.

Both of these devices were just released, so I expect HTC will work with NVIDIA and Qualcomm to continue to tweak power management settings and extend battery life.

Update: NVIDIA informs us that MX Player does not use their companion core very effectively, and ends up waking up the main cores periodically during playback. Battery life for video playback should be extended using the native gallery app.

Update 2: Head over to Anandtech for more extensive battery life testing. Brian Klug found that the Snapdragon S4 has longer battery life when it comes to 3G browsing and WiFi browsing, while Tegra 3 wins at WiFi hotspot and cellular talk time. Again, it looks like the results will vary with different use cases and are too close to call.

Winner – Tegra 3: This one is pretty simple. When it comes to marketing speak, four is better than two.

Winner – Tegra 3: On most games, you can’t tell the different between Tegra 3 and Snapdragon S4. However, NVIDIA has their TegraZone program which has resulted in several exclusive titles for Tegra 3. Thanks to these extra games, we think Tegra 3 provides the better gaming experience right now. Qualcomm also has their Snapdragon Gamecommand, but it doesn’t feature any exclusive games for Snapdragon S4 yet.

Keep in mind this could change in the future if Qualcomm starts writing fat checks to Gameloft and other devs for exclusive titles. Qualcomm is a much larger company than NVIDIA and they could outspend them on game exclusives if they choose to.

Winner – Too close to call: When I was on WiFi, I could not tell a difference between the two devices in day-to-day browsing usage. This could change in future versions of Chrome or with newer firmware updates, but for now the two devices are equal.

Winner – Snapdragon S4: Not much to say here. LTE is faster than HSPA+. Snapdragon S4 has an integrated LTE modem, while the Tegra 3 version is currently paired with a HSPA+ modem. This will always depend on your location and carrier, but on AT&T the Snapdragon S4 version is much faster. I achieved download speeds of 50 Mbps on Snapdragon S4 with LTE, and around 10 Mbps on Tegra 3 with HSPA+.

Tegra 3 offers more exclusive games, right now: Thanks to NVIDIA’s relationships with game developers, they currently offer a better overall gaming experience since they have more exclusive titles. This could change as Qualcomm steps up their efforts.

Snapdragon S4 has a faster modem, right now: Qualcomm has the only mobile chip with an integrated LTE modem, which gives them an advantage in network speeds. NVIDIA says their partners will have LTE modems out by the second half of 2012, so this advantage will be moot in a couple months.

Both chips are awesome and you can’t really tell a difference in normal usage: Even though Tegra 3 wins a majority of our benchmarks today, I can’t really tell a difference between the two devices. If you did a blind test between the two versions, I doubt you would be able to tell which is the quad-core Tegra 3 or the dual-core Snapdragon S4. NVIDIA has an advantage in exclusive games and Qualcomm has an advantage in LTE modems, but both of those arguments are going to be obsolete in the next couple months.

At the end of the day, it’s the consumer who wins this round of testing. Both Tegra 3 and Snapdragon S4 offer a better overall experience than the current generation of mobile processors and it’s significant. After using the HTC One X, I do not want to return to my Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Behold, the unholy marriage of a Tegra 3 game on a device of Snapdragon S4!

One of the great success last year marketing comes from NVIDIA and its Tegra platform. Tegra 2 began the dual-core era in early 2011. And late last fall, he increased the game even more with the platform Tegra 3hearts.

One of the NVIDIA ' main competitors of s in space, Qualcomm, responded to return in 2012 with a processor dual core Snapdragon S4 and Adreno graphics. And in one of these strange twists that can be done with Android for manufacturing (or so it seems), we ' ve had the opportunity to see it in action in the x a HTC.

There may be a little confused, but. In the United States, the x fact HTC reference (so far) of AT & t ' s version with its Qualcomm processor and LTE. Outside the United States, the version of Qualcomm is called a HTC and Tegra 3 XL is the a x. follow?

Return to Tegra 3. For a time, NVIDIA ' s strategy is firmly based on optimized games available only on devices Tegra 3 Tegra 3 and some only through NVIDIA ' s own Tegra Zone store. A number of titles have been fact their way into Google game store large and is now available on devices non - Tegra 3. We ' re with Riptide GP as our example, because we ' re very familiar with it. Very. He ' s a version in the Google game store that plays on almost all high end devices - Qualcomm S3 and S4, OMAP, Exynos, etc.. She plays very well and our hat ' s off to developers for a great game.

But this same game is loaded on Tegra 3 devices, you will see all kinds of effects and graphics that other processors can only ' handle t. things such as splashes of water on the screen, or a cool hyperspeed blur effect when you use the speed increases. Here ' s what developers have to say .

"RIPTIDE GP IMPROVED TEGRA 3!
The power of the hearts of NVIDIA ' s superchip Tegra 3 allowed us to add even more details and excitement to the experience of Riptide GP.  Tegra 3 players get extra heavyweight-detailed wave mapped to normal, water splashes on the camera and a spectacular movement realistic blur effect when stimulate them.  "Riptide GP seems even better with the power of the Tegra 3!"

Other games, such as Shadowgun THD won ' support even on our propelled S4 x t a HTC. And on GTA3, you must run a Tegra 3 max on all settings and run in frame rate. We can ' t just dismiss these differences, and NVIDIA Gets the blink of eye for the wow factor.

So. What happens when you run one of our favorite games - Riptide GP - on the version of Snapdragon Qualcomm dual-core of the x S4 a HTC? One way to know. A hit the break to see how it is.

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Dual-core Galaxy S3 to be offered in some territories with Snapdragon S4 and LTE

AppId is over the quota

En plus de l'HSPA + version de sa prochaine Galaxy S3, quad-core Samsung lancera une variante dual-core avec connectivité LTE et une puce de muflier S4 pour les marchés LTE à l'extérieur de la Corée. Rapports de The Korea Times, qui correspondent à ce qu'on nous a dit par nos propres sources, indiquent que le l'Exynos quad-core / HSPA + version verra large disponibilité internationale, tandis que le modèle S4 gueule-de-loup lancera dans d'autres pays avec LTE, y compris aux États-Unis. KT signale qu'à l'intérieur de la Corée, Samsung proposera un modèle CDMA/LTE basé sur sa propre puce quatre cœurs, bien que nous n'avons pas pu vérifier plus précisément.

Selon nos sources, compatibilité de radio LTE a été derrière la décision de passer à la puce S4 pour la version internationale de 4 G de la S3 Galaxy, et cela est logique si vous regardez les différences de fréquences LTE entre les États-Unis et Corée (et le reste du monde, en fait).

Donc il semble que la situation sera similaire à celle de l'AT & t x un HTC, où le constructeur opte pour un dual-core S4 au lieu d'une puce de quad-core concurrente, par souci de connectivité LTE. Cela n'est rien de nouveau, cependant, nous avons vu une situation similaire l'année dernière avec les variantes LTE de la Galaxy Note et Galaxy S II, qui utilise des puces S3 gueule-de-loup. Une fois de plus, c'est un choix entre LTE et quad-core. Mais malgré « seulement » qu'une puce dual-core, S4 de Qualcomm est basée sur l'architecture ARM Cortex A15 plus récent (et plus rapide), par rapport à l'A9 de Exynos, et nous avons déjà été impressionnés par les performances de la puce dans le HTC un S.

Veillez à garder regarder AC au cours de la semaine prochaine, comme nous nous approchons rapidement événement de lancement de la Galaxy S3 Londres.

Plus : Les forums Samsung Galaxy S3

via : le Korea Times

AT&T HTC One X with Snapdragon S4 Krait benchmarked

Thanks to forum member ?Phonegeek ?we're getting a pretty decent idea of what the AT&T One X with the Snapdragon S4 is capable of.  he usual caveats apply, though, this is early hardware and software that is close to final, but not exactly final. With that out of the way we can see that Qualcomm has something good on their hands with the S4 Krait processor. The One X handily outperforms the competition in Vellamo -- a browser benchmark developed by Qualcomm. Hopefully these numbers help quell any unrest about the AT&T version of the One X not getting the highly touted Tegra 3 processor in favor of something that plays nice with AT&T's LTE network.

There's still a long way to go before anyone crowns anyone with anything, though. Hit the link below for the full discussion.

Source: HTC One X Forums