Symbian Foundation woos partners with King Kong of smartphones
Holy. Crap. So, umm, have you been wondering what the Symbian foundation has been up to since revealing the mother of all development schedules? A whole lot, is what it’s been up to. Long story short, the team has cooperated with ST-Ericsson and ARM to build the first working example of multi-core goodness running on production chips with an open OS. Short story long…
Here’s what they slapped together:
- Single chip base band and application processor engine
- HSPA Modem Release7
- ARM® Cortex-A9 MPCore
And here’s what it’s capable of:
- HD 1080p camcorder and video
- Up to 18 Million pixels camera
- ~100 hours audio playback time
- 10 hours HD video playback time
- Simultaneously TV out over HDMI
- Video and Imaging accelerator
- HW accelerated 3D Graphics supporting OpenGL ES2.0
- 2xWVGA (960×854) displays
- Touch UI on 2 displays
Hot damn. We’ll take five. Of course this is just a proof of concept and please, don’t expect first generation Symbian^2 devices to be cooking with all that gas. But it’s all there — today. Right now all this adds up to a synopsis alongside a promo video intending to show potential partners what Symbian is capable of, but for us it means exciting times ahead, people. Exciting times.
[Via IntoMobile]
Nice
This HAS to be in retaliation for BGR’s review on their Flagship N97
Their new slogan should be STUNT 101
With every great company you have to take a back seat to develop amazing stuff. Otherwise it will be stale like Apple is….oh my god two years to bump the camera to 3 megapixels!!!
“Up to 18 Million pixels camera”
can computers even process images that big??
they arent talking megapixels……jus plain pixels…..18 million is quite high for a mobile device…..but not that much for a properly spec’ed computer
So, as Symbian flagship phones go, these stats would run you $4500.00? Can you say 10 year contract? Sounds nice, but doubt we’ll see anything Stateside that will matter.
All of that means nothing unless they clean up their outdated UI and do something to get some developers on board.
this stuff will be in devices in 2012 and 2013. As usual, Nokia is leading in innovation. As in REAL innovation. Ask RIM, Apple, WinMo, and WebOS if they’ve prepared a hardware/software combination that’ll be ready in that time…
I knew I converted from Blackberry for a reason, not that any of this will go consumer. But it’s nice to know there thinking this stuff up.
there needs to be a People’s carrier in the states. i really am getting tired of all this competition between carriers that filters down to consumers. it’s just one more (rediculous) thing that degrades the good name of progress. then, maybe, technology like this can actually be a reality for us.
They were passing our free nokias outside WWDC lol. No thanks! Haha.
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).
The dream device above needs to become a Vertu NOW!
The interesting thing here, the Symbian Foundation didn’t develop the chip. It is just that their OS will run on that ST-Ericsson chip.
Oh, and with a port any OS can run on that chip.
This is great news for ALL technology lovers! The big picture is that HD is where our devices are headed. Nokia and ST-E aren’t the only ones moving in that direction. In a few years, RIM, APPLE, Samsung, LG, HTC and everyone else will have devices that are capable of HD and blazing fast 3D processors!!! I for one can’t wait!! Then will times be great for everyone!! Even dumbphones will be better than our current smartphones!!!
I remember trying to get Quake to run on a Pentium 66Mhz at 320×240 and now almost EVERY PC has a dual core processor pushing double or greater Ghz, several GIGS of ram, HUNDREDS of GIGS on the HD! That has become normal. We don’t even think about it. I remember when a 4MB Memory upgrade was almost $50!
Soon, our phones will have 3D chips and HD recording (or atleast VGA 30FPS) standard and several GB internal memory standard. Remember when phones had <5MB user memory?
This is great news to all!!!!
Time…it only takes time…
Vapor.
wonder what the battery life would be? battery technology has to catch up. it isnt really a “mobile” phone if u have to plug it in every 2 hours…
@Deaconclgi,
Just in case you didn’t catch it, ST-Ericsson is a different company than Sony-Ericsson (same parent, but completely different).
That means that the chip described above can be used in anyone’s cell phone; RIM, Apple, HTC, LG, etc.
ST-Ericsson competes with Texas Instruments, Qualcom, and Broadcom.
@ Deaconclgi – did you really have to use all those exclaimation points to get your ‘excitement’ across within your statements?
This is cool but, I’m wondering why they would announce all of this goodness if they don’t already have a device to come to the market. All it does is give its competitors an edge in coming out with something better (highly doubt that would happen anytime soon). Let’s see what happens in the next 6 months.
@ Tyrone D.,
Do went think Nokia and Symbian did all this in months?? This took years of development, and millions of dollars in R&D. Competitors are following Nokia, not leading. Most of the market research in the sector is paid for by Nokia.
This isn’t a device, but a testbed for the next generation of Symbian Features. The second screen will most probably feature Haptikos technology, and Tat, designers of the iPhone UI technology, are actually major members of the Symbian Foundation. When we see a device, its a culmination of things done 3 years prior. By the way, ST Ericsson is also a Symbian Foundation member, as are most of the major manufacters. Symbian needs this platform to test the stuff for 2011 and 2012.
@ chstiexaport
I don’t think Nokia or Symbian developed this chip at all, it is a ST-Ericsson chip.
And this is a chip, not a testbed for the next generation. Notice the article mentions that this is a production chip.
Symbian does need this chip, not to test but for manufacturers to use with their OS. But again, this chip is not Symbian specific. It can run Symbian, but it can also run Android or Windows.
@ info,
You’re right. Neither Nokia nor Symbian developed the chip. But with ST Ericsson as Symbian Foundation partners, they’ve gotten first shot at this hardware because the Symbian Foundation’s feature roadmap will need the capabilities only this chip provides. Watch how fast the Symbian Foundation will have a working testbed with this new hardware up and running before other manufacturers have had a chance to even test a single chip. This was designed with a purpose, and for specific function per a pretty deep pocketed buyer know for making devices of powerful hardware.
Its to run future OS functions. In order to have a dual touchscreen display with Haptikos technology on the lower screen for button controls, they can design the software for it to run on this instead of waiting for Haptikos to be ready. That way, when future tech comes around, the framework for it has already been engineered. This is a common thing for Nokia/Symbian Foundation. That’s why I use the term testbed. It goes along the lines of their research and product roadmaps.
Membership and purchasing power has its privileges. The Symbian Foundation’s manufacturing partners sell more devices yearly than any other OS, so this is where the money’s at. ST Electronics, now ST Ericsson, has slowly become Nokia’s new best friend. Notice the move from OMAP to ST in the post-N95 era devices? They’re their new hardware partner for their next generation stuff instead of OMAP3. Whether this is good or bad, we will see. Hopefully it will allow more 3D acceleration and faster stuff.