If you travel back few years, the most popular mobile computing hardware platform was Apple AX. It was there in iPhone, iPad as well as iPod Touch. Then Android started emerging and many manufactures came up with Android powered device.
Nvidia Tegra was a very popular platform for high end gaming devices and Samsung had their own Exynos platform. With the time and technology they came up with dual core and quad core architecture as well as high end multi core GPU.
When I was observing specs of latest Smartphone, especially Windows Phone 8 devices such as Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X, the name of Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 continue to popup. It’s rumored to be in the next LG Nexus 4 as well.
This amazingly powerful mobile computing platform managed to dominate Smartphone and Tablet world in an exponential rate competing with others. Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 platform is under NOG spot light today.
Versions of Snapdragon S4
Play
This uses 45mm semiconductor technology and support up to 1.7GHz dual core ARM Cortex A5 CPU and Adreno 203 GPU capable of handling WVGA videos. Has in built 3G radio and good fit for average performance devices.
Plus
This is using 28mm semiconductor technology and support up to 1.7GHz dual core ARM Cortex A15 CPU, single channel RAM, and Adreno 305 GPU capable of handling 1080p videos. It has built in 3G and 4G radio as well as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS.
Pro
This is using 28mm semiconductor technology and support up to 1.7GHz quad core Cortex A15 CPU, dual channel RAM, and Adreno 320 GPU capable of handling 1080p videos. Same as in Plus, this has all the radios built in.
Prime
Entire specification is same as S4 Pro, yet this doesn’t have built in radios.
Advantages of Snapdragon S4 Pro Platform
Better Power Consumption
28mm fabrication and ARM Cortex A15 architecture is highly optimized to consume lesser power and do more work. And there is a special technique to under clock CPU cores when they are performing background tasks. This is something similar to NVidia 4-PLUS-1 technology, yet much better.
Maximum Processing Power
Snapdragon S4 platform support up to 1.7 GHz quad core processor and latest Adreno 320 GPU. This will turn any Smartphone in to powerhouse fit to perform heavy load of tasks, especially 1080p HD graphics.
Built in Radio
This platform has built in 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC and LTE radios. This opens Snapdragon S4 powered devices to a whole lot of latest lightning speed data networks.
Wrapping Up
If you try to benchmark Qualcomm dual core platform with Nvidia Tegra 3 and Exynos Quad Core platform, of course Quad core would win, yet in some aspects of Qualcomm will win. When you benchmark Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad core platform with other competitors, it will kick off everyone else.
Here are some links to benchmark results.
- GSMarena
- Engadget
- Slashgear
It’s a very powerful, energy efficient and secured platform which will define future mobile computing. Most of the high end devices are already using Snapdragon S4 platform and it’s going viral. I’m pretty sure this will be a huge challenge to famous Nvidia Tegra 3 and Samsung Exynos.
Tags: #Qualcomm #Smartphone #Tablet