14 DAY TRIAL // This week the faith of Qualcomm’s upcoming high-end platform, the Snapdragon 810 has been intensely debated.
Industry sources continue to claim the silicone manufacturer is trying to deal with some overheating issues that have arisen with the chip, but the process seems to be taking a lot more than expected.
Since the Snapdragon 810 is expected to make an appearance in most of 2015’s flagship handsets including the Samsung Galaxy S6, HTC Hima, Sony Xperia Z4 or LG G4, Qualcomm’s failure to deliver the chip on time might push the launch of these top-tier handsets back.
Actually, the rumor mill has it that Samsung might be saying skip to the Snapdragon 810 and rely on its Exynos platform instead, while the Galaxy S6 is concerned.
On the other hand, other reports claim Qualcomm will deliver the Snapdragon 810 on time for Xiaomi and LG which are the first two manufacturers that have announced handsets bundling the chip (the LG G Flex 2 and Xiaomi Mi Note Pro).
Anyhow, since the faith of the Snapdragon 810 chip seems to be so unstable, major device manufacturers might want to look somewhere else when choosing a chip for their flagship. Here are the options that might make sense.
MediaTek MT6795
Qualcomm mocked MediaTek when the latter introduced the world’s first octa-core processor, but a lot has changed since then. Now Qualcomm is struggling to bring to the market the octa-core Snapdragon 810, but MediaTek rolled out something similar ever since July.
The Taiwanese chip maker introduced the MT6795 chip this summer, which came equipped with eight 64-bit cores running at 2.2GHz, Cat 4.LTE support, H.265 video recording and playback and multi-mode wireless charging to name some of the few perks of this piece of silicone.
In the graphics department, the chip relies on PowerVR G6200 graphics accelerator clocked at up to 700MHz frequency.
The chipset can support displays of up to 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution. There are a few downsides, nevertheless. The MT6795 is built on a 28nm die process, so it’s bound to be less energy efficient than Qualcomm’s silicone.
It’s also uncertain how the chip will be able to handle LTE bands outside of Asia.
Samsung Exynos 7 Octa
Samsung has made it a point to focus intensively on its own silicone production, but the tech giant continues to rely on outside help when it comes to its flagships.
Well, this might change soon as Samsung is rumored to be considering using one of its Exynos chips inside the upcoming Galaxy S6 flagship.
Samsung’s Exynos 7 Octa, for example, has eight 64-bit cores clocked at 1.9GHz; but compared to Qualcomm’s platform, it fades a little, since it is pushing for sub 3GHz frequencies.
The Exynos 7 Octa process was proved in benchmark testing to be a worthy competitor to the Snapdragon 805, so even if it might not rise up to the level of performance the Snapdragon 810 promises, it’s still powerful enough to breathe life into the company’s next flagship.
NVIDIA Tegra K1 Denver
I know what you’re thinking, NVIDIA’s next-gen Tegra X1 processor has already been announced, but it’s going to be some time until we end up seeing devices running on this chip.
However, the Tegra K1 has been out and about for quite some time, although it hasn’t inspired many mobile device makers to take it up.
But that might as well change in 2015. The Tegra K1 Denver is a powerful piece of silicone. It nestles a 64-bt dual-core 2.5GHz CPU that comes equipped with a 192-core Kepler GPU clocked at 950MHz.
It also supports LTE networks. However, we are yet to see a smartphone being powered by this power-hungry chip. For the time being, only a few tablets taking advantage of the Tegra K1 exist, the Nexus 9 included.
So it’s less likely we are going to see major device makers take up this newcomer to the world of mobile devices and ignore offerings from seasoned mobile chip providers like Qualcomm.
